Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

    Several years ago, I went to the pumpkin patch at my favorite local farm, and picked what looked like a perfect pumpkin, right off the vine.  I proudly photographed it, and buckled it into the backseat of the car like a child on the way back home. It sat, beautiful and majestic, in the living room, until the day before Halloween, my traditional day for pumpkin carving in the years when I felt so inclined. This was a particularly trying year, as Hurricane Sandy had just happened and the celebration of Halloween was uncertain. Carving that pumpkin was going to be my salvation, if everything else got cancelled.  I stuck the carving knife in, and was devastated to find that my perfect pumpkin, that I’d been so proud of all month long, was actually rotten inside. This was devastating to me. I still loved that pumpkin, still was proud of my pick, and treasured the pictures I’d taken of it and the other memories from that day. But I was left to wonder if there was something I could’ve don

 If you ask me my earliest memories of things related to Halloween, there are many.  The initial thing that comes to mind is my first year trick-or-treating, at age four. I have vivid memories of my pumpkin costume, a hand-me-down from my cousin, and being coaxed out from under a table and into the magical world of Halloween, that would become my world from that moment on. I often catch myself wondering if that’s where my specific obsession with pumpkin people originates from.  I think a lot about those classic McDonald’s Halloween pails, served with a Happy Meal inside. A small collection of them existed in my home before I was born, and I played with them like toys before I’d ever even experienced Halloween. Each one had a name and a personality (my favorite being “Katta”, the witch) and would often leave me with a craving for French fries (or a milkshake, in the ghost’s case) when I was done playing. One day soon, those guys will get their own post here.  There is one vague memory t