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| Oh boys, I would harness the moon for you, but I cannot carve the Death Star. |
What my kids want, they get. Kind of. If it’s healthy and / or free, anyway. So when they said they wanted a Death Star pumpkin, who was I to refuse?
If you ask my boys what they want for a present, they say, the second Lego Death Star. If you ask them what they want for breakfast, they say, the Death Star. So it was really no surprise that this was their answer to “How shall we carve our pumpkin?” Of course, as they see everything through the prism of Angry Birds, it was to be an Angry Birds Piggy Death Star. So I got to work.
First, I cut the lid off the pumpkin – all wrong. As I discovered later when I lit a candle inside and it was immediately extinguished by the top falling in. Note: You are supposed to angle it so it doesn’t do that. If you don’t, simply skewer it angrily with cocktail sticks to make the wretched thing balance on top. I hollowed out the pumpkin with a big spoon and every intention of making the innards into a warming winter soup, that would somehow cause the kids to throw aside their lifelong hatred of a) vegetables and b) anything in runny form.
A bad workman…blames his children
That was the easy bit. Having no pumpkin carver to hand, I settled on a potato peeler. Oh, how wrong I was. The pointy end was ideal for carving out the “design” but the gouging was palm-blisteringly laborious.
Still, after an hour or so, I delightedly called the children to witness the Grand Lighting. As with most craft projects, they’d wandered off to do something more fun after about five minutes, leaving me working beaverishly in grim-faced isolation. But they ran to see me light the candle inside. I did so. Nothing happened. None of my lines were deep enough. I nearly cried. They did cry.
Having put them to bed with the promise of having it ready for them at breakfast, I embarked on Gougathon #2. Later, much much later, I excitedly summoned my husband to witness The Second Grand Lighting. One of the pumpkin’s eyes flickered. My husband’s dropped. Mine filled with frustrated tears.
Having sent him to bed, I started again, the determination of an ox crazed with tiredness powering my carving hand, by now in shreds, muttering all the while, “Why did I let them choose what to carve? Why? WHY?”
Finally, at a little past midnight, I applied the match, with shaking hand, to the candle…and the blasted thing lit up! As did my little angels’ faces when they saw it in the morning.
If you are familiar with Angry Birds Star Wars, this may strike you with some element of recognition. If not, you must be wondering what in the name of heaven and earth is going on in my mind to produce possibly the scariest pumpkin ever.
Note: If you were really hoping to learn how to carve an Angry Bird Piggy Death Star pumpkin, do the above, but a) with sharper tools; b) a template to trace onto your pumpkin (you put the picture over the pumpkin and put little dots all along the lines, then cut along them with your sharp tool); and c) less swearing.
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What is this ‘less swearing’ of which you speak? As with ‘less chocolate’ or ‘less wine’, this is a phrase which doesn’t appear in my ‘Universal Dictionary of Motherhood’.
Ahhh I love this. I just did a tutorial on how to carve a pumpkin but love this you always have me laughing. Love the angry birds too
ha ha i love it Jess! You are a very skilled pumpkin carvery indeed 🙂 xx
Aww great idea 🙂 we have some Pumpkins but I am hoping my kids just want eyes and a month!! yours is so creative.Great job here …
Ummmm…I don’t know Angry Birds and I have to say, when I saw your splendid creation all I saw was three jolly stick men, holding hands! I do like it, though….
I go away for one week and what happens?! All of a sudden you’re doing craft?! Jess. You’ve changed. But I love even more. This is genius. x