Pumpkin Carving Night

Every fall Prairie Creek parents hosts a pumpking carving night. As you walk into the school's gym you are literally assaulted with the smell of pumpkins. It's a strong, unmistakeable odor! After the smell, you see the floor covered in newspapers and pumpkin guts. Besides carving their pumpkins the kids eat Gorp and play out on the playground with flashlights.

We've learned a litte trick to make the night more fun for us. We "gut" our over-size vegetables before we go. When we get there, the kids sit by their friends and talk about what kind of designs or faces they'll do. Because of the great community of the school, they encourage each other and oooh and aaah at one anothers creations.

This year I noticed that a lot of the "old timer" moms and dads were standing along the edge chatting with each other. The parents of the younger children were sprawled on the floor with shreads of the insides of pumpkins sticking to their pant legs. A few moms and dads were consoling their son or daughter over a face cut-out gone astray. The older parents knew that their kids could handle themselves and really didn't want our help. Many of them had already gone outside to play flashlight tag.

For many of us, this is our last year at Prairie Creek. We all met 6 years ago when our children started in kindergarten. So, each of us does our best to make the most of these get togethers.