It’s the moment you have all been waiting for: the true glimpse into The Dysfunction of the Crazy Clan as we party in honor of The Great Pumpkin.
If you don’t like pumpkins, walk away now. And don’t come back until after Halloween. Later this week, I will do an interview with Mr. Lord of the Gourds whom you know only as my king of one-liners. In his humorous way, he will answer everything you have ever wanted to know about his freakish hobby of growing freakishly big pumpkins. So, please ask away in the comments below.
Now, onto the parties. It did not start well. You see, we had to borrow our neighbor’s trailer in order to haul The Great Pumpkin. I knew I was in for it when Jamie asked me to help him hook the trailer onto our SUV.
“Jamie, are you going to yell at me?”
Ten minutes later, the trailer pummelled down our driveway and landed on our flower beds. Evidently, I did not do a good job.
And yes, there was yelling.
But onto more important things….
The makings of a pumpkin party are:
1)The Great Pumpkin. And yes, we did decorate the canopy with [what else] pumpkin lights.
2) Food. And excited children to eat the food (Hadley’s own pumpkin served as our table display and she placed third in the children’s competition the next day!)
3) Pumpkin pie. Please disregard the blasphemy-that-was-the-apple-pie that dared to crash our pumpkin party.
4) Prayers to The Gods of the Great Pumpkin for the strength to move it.
5) Eight big, strong men [stupid enough] to haul it with The Lifting Tarp…
…and who can still smile when it’s over.
6) The tear-jerker ending as the sun sets on the now-empty pumpkin patch.
For details of the big weigh-off, go to Jamie’s blog, Denver Pumpkins. He has a slew of pictures of the crane they used to haul these beasts as well as some cool shots of the prize-winning pumpkin.
Oh, and a parting shot of Father and Son. And yes, Jamie did have that shirt custom-made. Did you really need to ask?
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 