Pumpkin Carvings

“Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

Yes, kids, this is Halloween—and just about the bestest time of the year. I love the change in the weather, the honeycrisp apples, the pounds and pounds of Mounds candy bars, and most of all: carving pumpkins.

The annual carving ritual started as far back as I can remember. I must have inherited this interest and skill from my dad, because I’m positive he enjoyed this then as much as I do now. Since the first time I could hold a knife by myself without destroying life or property, this was the design I carved:

[Note: you can hover over the images with your mouse for additional information. Note: you can do that on every interior image I post.]

Year after year, it was the same design, and I never tired of it. Well, that’s not true. Once I got into my mid twenties, I knew there was more to carving pumpkins than this, but my dreams were always limited by thick-bladed kitchen knives. Then in 1994, Pumpkin Masters hit the scene (at least I don’t ever remember seeing them before then). Their carving kits started showing up in stores like nobody’s business. I saw tiny little saws and suddenly realized my pumpkin carving dreams were about to come true.

The pumpkin on the left was my 1994 carving. It was time-consuming, but worth every minute. Further, I was inspired. So the very next year I decided to create my own design from scratch. I wasn’t able to find all the photos and/or video this week, so I whipped up this sketch.

For the next three years, I did standard Pumpkin Masters designs until 1999 when I decided to carve Darth Maul. Again, I lost that photo, but I found this one on the interwebs that looks remarkably similar to the one I carved.

I have no idea what I did in 2000. Yet again, I cannot find any photographic evidence. In 2001, I didn’t have much time, and fell back on another Pumpkin Masters design I’d done a few years earlier:

No idea what the 2002 pumpkin was. But I do remember the 2003 pumpkin: Spongebob Squarepants! I really liked that one, therefore, I do not have a picture of it. Hrmph! The following year I did Shrek. I have half a picture of that one:

In 2005, I tried to carve people for the first time. Neo looks okay, Agent Smith looks a lot better. I just wish I had a clearer photo:

Short on time and ideas the following year, I continued The Matrix theme by carving Morpheus. Unfortunately, it looks more like an overweight Ghandi to me:

And we’ll wrap up this overly long post with last year’s entry, the Balrog-o-Lantern:

For those who haven’t seen Fellowship of the Ring, that’s a dude you do not want to mess with. Here’s a screenshot from the movie, for comparison:

So there you have it, kids. A small subset of my pumpkin carving collection. Hope it wasn’t as boring as the slide show of my Grand Canyon trip. And who knows, maybe you picked up a few ideas for your own pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!