Happy Pumpkins!
Personally, I’m just not real crazy about Halloween, but when you have little kids you can’t exactly ignore it all together. I was happy to discover The Pumpkin Patch Parable several years ago, when my children were quite small. It has become a “Halloween” tradition at our house.
It is the sweetly-illustrated story of a farmer who raises pumpkins. When harvest time comes he chooses just the right one to transform into a smiling jack ’o’ lantern. He pulls all the “ickiness” from the pumpkin’s “heart” and then puts a light inside that shines out from the pumpkin’s face.
There are scriptures on each page that turn this simple story into an object lesson of the change Jesus makes when we allow him to take the sin out of our hearts and put His light within us.
So this week when my now-teen-age children were begging to carve a pumpkin, I got a nice big one for them to work on.
They carved a traditional happy face into it, and carefully washed the seeds for us to roast.
And yes, I dug out the book from their preschool years and read it to them again!
They didn’t mind.
2019 update: It’s hard to believe it’s been 11 years since this original post. Smiling pumpkins on the porch in October remains one of our favorite fall traditions even though my girls are now young adults.
Joining in with Timberdoodle’s “Hello, Fall!” Blog Hop.
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
13 Comments
Gigi
I found you from the pumpkin party at We Are THAT Family.
We have The Pumpkin Patch Parable and love it! My children are still small (4.5 and almost 2) and I think this book will become a Halloween tradition for us beginning this year! I know right where it is on their bookshelf.
Thanks for the great idea! And I like the pumpkin your kids carved.
JanMary
Never heard of that book, but need to go and look for it on Amazon UK.
Thanks for sharing about it.
Mrs. Querido
Wow…never heard of the book before! I am going to see if they have it at my library. What a great tradition and a wonderful way to shine a light 🙂
pse
Great carving job! and I like the book. Happy Halloween.
Named Alicia
I’ve never heard of that book. I will have to find it. Your pumpkin looks great!
Deanna
We read this book every year. I did my Word Filled Wednesday post on this parable this past Wednesday too. We don’t “do” Halloween. We do a “sneak and treat”. We cut off all our lights, grab blankets and pillows and head to the living room to eat pizza and watch a movie with popcorn. I always buy the boys a few of their favorite candies for that night. They love it.
We are THAT Family
I’m with you….and that’s why we read Liz Curtis Higgs book every year! I LOVE that book and I got mine autographed!
What a perfectly handsome pumpkin you guys carved!
Toots
What sweet fun!
Muthering Heights
I’ll have to look for that book…it would be a great one for my very little girls! Thanks for the tip!
MuseSwings
In their hearts, our children never really grow up. What a wonderful tradition they let you continue!
Farrah
What a sweet tradition! Girl, you are following LOTS of blogs!!! How do you have time for that?? Lol!
It's All Good!
Hi Karla, I’m over from Susan (Penless Writer). I’ll have to find this book for my dd (7). We not too much into Halloween…instead we’ve kind of made a tradition of bringing out the Christmas music/dvds for a day and baking Christmas cookies. It was really fun!
Look forward to visiting again.
God bless,
Brenda
Kristen
That sounds like a a great book. We love the planning of costumes and dressing up together as a family part of Halloween the most I think. Plus we visit a local farm for pumpkin picking and fall fun and games.