It's the Great Pumpkin...

Pumpkins.  They come in all shapes, sizes and colors and all told, there are about 50 different varieties.  There are pumpkin varieties just for making pies (The Cinderella, Sugar Pie and Blue Hubbard), Stew and Soup Pumpkins (Red Kuri and Kobacha) and even varieties that make great stuffing (The Acorn and Sweet Dumpling).  But if you are a tried and true American at Halloween and are looking to carve a pumpkin, and roast some seeds, you really are looking for just one type (or offspring of the variety) and that is the Jack-O-Lantern.  But I live in Chile and it is not pumpkin season here.  We are in the middle of Spring, not fall.  Which means you won't find them growing locally, and finding an imported Jack-O-Lantern is like trying to find, well, it's like trying to find anything else that is typically American - almost impossible.  I searched a couple of stores for them and finally found something close to what I was looking for.

Not perfect.  But pretty good.  If you could get over the fact that there was no way a knife was ever going to be able to actually carve them.  They are hard as rocks.  But, no worries here.  My girls are too little to wield knives anyway.  So I brought out the markers, the stickers and a sharpie.  I asked them each what kind of face they wanted me to draw and then let them be as creative as they wanted.  We had a great time and I don't think it even phased them that the pumpkins were different.

Stinkerbell went with a happy face.

 

MadHatter went with a scary face...Just like hers.

BTW, a small piece of trivia the largest pumpkin on record weighed in at 1810 lbs. and came from Wisconsin, she types with a bit of pride.