Jack-o-spider

Ok, so to some of you this may seem strange, but I was never really big into Halloween when I was a kid. My mom's always been sort of anti-Halloween because she bought into the whole "Halloween is the devil's day" deal since it was originally a Celtic harvest festival often associated with spirits and whatnot. So yeah anyway, long story short they never passed out candy and I never really went trick-or-treating... I didn't really have a lot of fun with it until I got older and figured out how much fun smashing pumpkins and costume parties are (and no, I'm not talking about Billy Corgan).

...which segways nicely into this next picture. Not only did I carve this pumpkin this afternoon, but this is actually the first jack-o-lantern I've ever carved! I think it's a sort of weird experience for an American to go all the way to Japan to carve his first pumpkin for Halloween - I told one guy at work it'd be like a Japanese person going to the US and having their first piece of sushi or something. So yeah, I had a lot of fun with that, and hopefully people will appreciate it since it took me forever to get the stupid thing gutted and carved. That little hand-sized thing took me a good hour or so to finish because of the pattern I chose.

We're having a big Halloween party for kids this Saturday, complete with trick-or-treating, candy, apple bobbing, and even a full blown haunted house! I get to scare the crap out of little kids - I'm really gonna enjoy that one. ;P There was a mini-party at this elementary school I visited this morning, and all those kids dressed up and were sooo cute it's rediculous. It's too bad, because I feel like if I don't make at least one of them cry out of fear then I haven't successfully done my job as party coordinator and haunted house designer. It looks to be rather hastily flung together, but luckily Japanese kids have rather vivid imaginations and thus scare quite easily. I'll let you know how things go.