All about pumpkins - MetroFamily Magazine
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All about pumpkins

by Callie Collins

Reading Time: 2 minutes 

Oklahoma City family fun comes in all shapes and sizes.

So do pumpkins, I'm finding out. 

Pumpkins, squash and gourds all turned up at our local supermarket this past week. 

There's a good selection available and it's fun to see how big, tall, round or wrinkled the varieties are that line store entrances and make up displays on hay bales. Isaac, age 3, has to hug a few goodbye each time we make our weekly trek now.

Every year, it's something of a special occasion to go choose our pumpkins. We drink hot cocoa and make an evening of it, a trip to the grocery store that's suddenly less routine. 

"Can we choose our pumpkin tonight?," Sam and Isaac take turns asking me throughout the month of September. 

"Not yet," I answer, knowing that pumpkins will only last so long on a doorstep. 

I try to side-step buying them until October because it's like "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." If you give two children a pumpkin, they'll want you to buy them a pumpkin carving kit to go with it and if you buy them a pumpkin carving kit… well, then there's pumpkin pie to make, pumpkin seeds to roast, candles to include and light each evening. It's a whole process that I actually look forward to each year but that has to come in its own time. 

This year, I don't just want to choose a pumpkin; I want us all to pick a pumpkin, off the vine, preferably at a local farm or pumpkin patch

We tried stepping up our Christmas tree experience last year by purchasing it at a real tree lot instead of the hardware store and it was worth doing. I vaguely recall visiting a pumpkin patch in Arcadia when Sam was 2 or so but we haven't been out in that area for several years. Isaac has never visited a pumpkin patch and everything is new to Gabriel at 8 months. It'll be his first Halloween and I'd like to establish more of a tradition than just trick-or-treating or buying a pumpkin-shaped pizza each year. 

If you're also looking for a local pumpkin patch too, click here for some around the Oklahoma City area. 

Have a favorite that's not on the list? Email callie@metrofamilymagazine.com to let us know.

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