Carving out time to get things done

When we were kids my mom would buy one enormous pumpkin, and we would all help to clean it out, vote on a design, and then carve it together.  I have a vivid memory of sitting in front of the old stereo console with the lights out, staring at the jack o'lantern on top that we had carved, anxious for Halloween fun.

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This year we ended up carving pumpkins in November.  We over planned our weekend with activities and shopping, and ended up waiting to carve pumpkins till last night.

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 The kids put on laytex gloves, and I can't blame them.  Pumpkin guts are slimmy!

Just ask Tessa...

 Ethan's Jack the Pumpkin King was amazingly created from memory. 

As usual, Ellie thought hers wasn't good enough. 
I loved it. 

 Adam's cyclops was hysterical,

and Tessa coaxed Daddy into doing her dirty work. 
She chose the features.

I just ended up playing with my little pumpkin.

*****

It used to be I absolutely had to do things on the day they were meant to be done.  Even if it was exhausting, even if it meant everyone was crabby by the time it was all done, even if it was midnight, I forced myself (and often everyone else) to get it done. 

I don't know what made it all change, but maybe as I 'grow up' I have realized that the whole point to all of these fun traditions is...duuuuuh... for them to actually be fun.  I regret all of the times I have taken the fun out of things.  I guess I have always looked at holidays as if they were ruined if I didn't bake every pie from scratch and make every gift by hand.  In the past if I had not made the kids their costumes, I felt as though I had failed them. 

It occurred to me recently that the kids probably won't remember this particular Halloween, or any particular Christmas or birthday, but they will remember them all together as a memory collage.  If they usually had fun, that would be the thing they would hold in their hearts.  I doubt that the kids will remember that we carved pumpkins this year the day after Halloween, but I bet you they will always remember this: