This was the first year we had Halloween at our new house and we weren't quite sure what to expect. Were we going to be inundated with trick-or-treaters? How many people could we expect? We knew we should buy some candy, but what kind and how much? Living in an apartment insulated us from dealing with trick-or-treating kids for years. We figured that in the time since we last went trick-or-treating, there must have been some kind of inflation in candy expectations from the kids, so we ended up going to Costco and buying regular-sized Kit Kats and Twix. Thirty six bars of each.
We also went out and bought a pumpkin to carve. The weekend before Halloween we figured it was the right time to do the carving. Agnes said that she didn't want something scary looking: non-triangular eyes, and no jagged teeth. In short, the opposite of that picture in the upper right hand corner of this page. We drew a few possibilities on paper before we settled on a face we liked. Using a very sharp paring knife, we set to work. Below, you can see the results of our carving.
The pumpkin was carved on the Sunday before Halloween. We were afraid that the pumpkin would spoil between that Sunday and Halloween Friday, so we looked up tips on how to make it keep after carving. We ended up keeping it in the refrigerator and smearing a bit of petroleum jelly on all cut surfaces. After carving the pumpkin, Agnes toasted the pumpkin seeds, and we snacked on them throughout the week.
On the Halloween Day, Agnes had to work. I came home late. It rained. After I got home, I turned on the porch light, and waited for the kids to arrive. Four kids showed up at our door all night. That left us with thirty two Kit Kats and thirty six Twix. We both ended up bringing most of our leftover candy to work, and our co-workers quickly consumed it all.