Halloween Gone Green

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

We had a beautiful princess and a stealthy black ninja at our house. And what was RDW?

Well, despite the four hand-me-down halloween costumes that fit him perfectly, he went as a cute little boy in a cheeky halloween t-shirt because he wanted NOTHING to do with the hot, itchy, scratchy costumes! (and halloween dress-up is not a battle I'm willing to fight)

Being outside of the US can pose definite challenges to the traditional celebration of certain holidays. This year, the challenge presented itself in the form of pumpkin carving. (This is not a new challenge to us -- on Groote Eylandt, Australia the only pumpkins you could buy had a very tough, blue/green skin, and were 3 or 4 inches thick, which makes for EXTREMELY difficult carving!) But this year, although you can buy conveniently skinned and cubed pieces of pumpkin for cooking or roasting, it was COMEPLETELY impossible to purchase whole pumpkins. So we had to be creative......

Here's a hint!!

That's right, we went green and carved WATERMELONS!!!

Although its not exactly traditional, there were lots of advantages to carving watermelons instead of pumpkins: 1. since it is summer here, watermelons are rather inexpensive. 2. As Evee showed in the previous picture, watermelon carving is MUCH tastier! (And the air is filled with a sugary, sweet smell rather than the pungent, foul smell of raw pumpkin.)

3. As Joe and Evee discovered, carving out the flesh of a watermelon is "Easy, Peasy" 4. Not a single person complained about having slimy, sticky pumpkin guts stuck to their hands. (Although I will admit the floor was MUCH stickier post watermelon carving, than post pumkin) So we had a GREAT time carving watermelons -- at least most of us carved. One little person found other ways to amuse himself....

Nothing better than emptying out a full kitchen cupboard!

Here are the finished products and the artists responsible for them:

Watermelon carving or pumpkin carving -- based on our personal experience, it doesn't really matter what you use. As long as you have fun, and we sure did!!!