Living overseas for over a decade means we’ve missed out on many things, particularly autumn activities, because in all that time we never came back during the fall. Now, we had a great community of expat friends which means that we certainly tried to replicate holidays and traditions we’d had in America, but it was never quite the same.
Now that we’re back, we’re trying to figure out which activities we want to do, and how to do them. One of those is jack o’ lanterns. Pumpkins weren’t very big overseas (or if they were, they were expensive) and when you live in an apartment with people who don’t celebrate Halloween, putting a creepily carved lit pumpkin outside your door is sure to disturb the neighbors.
The kids were thrilled the other day to see huge pumpkins at the store for $4 each (I don’t know if this is cheap. It seemed ridiculously cheap to us). Yesterday, despite being tired from a weekend away, I decided it would be a great time to do this with the kids.
I knew, as every parent knows, that I would probably end up doing the majority of the work. Surprisingly, the kids wanted to clean out the insides of their pumpkins themselves, for the most part. Megan named hers Robert Patrick McKinn, nickname Bobrick McKinn, which is decidedly awesome. We decided to write our family name in Mandarin on them, so that was definitely my job with the knife. We were told later that they won’t last long, which is disappointing, but honestly – we’d happily do it again. We’re making up for lost time!
So that’s my victory for Sunday – making memories with the kids. And not only memories, but ones that build into their connection back to the U.S. I’m almost hoping we’ll have to do more (although I’m guessing they won’t be as keen the second time around).
What are you calling victory today?
