It’s October 30th and I haven’t bought a real pumpkin yet. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but I am from Anoka, Minnesota, the Halloween Capital of the World. (I’m totally not kidding, you can check it out here.)
Growing up, Halloween was a week long event with a couple parades, a Pumpkin Bowl football game and so much more. So how is it that I, hailing from the place of Halloween, can’t muster up the desire to celebrate this year?
Here it is: being an empty nester isn’t the same when it comes to the holidays. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of point to decorating and being my usual “theme queen” when there is no one here to enjoy it.
Here’s what I got so far: some fake pumpkins from Michaels and some Martha Stewart pumpkin transfers – even the idea of a craft project isn’t getting me in the spirit.

I think I’m in this time warp of my own kids being too old for my shenanigans but not yet a grandparent (thankfully!) when I get to geek out again with all things Holiday.
How has your holiday celebration changed since becoming an empty nester? To the not-yet-empty-nesters, do you long for the day when you don’t have to carve pumpkins and come up with clever costumes?
1 thought on “Pumpkins”
I get it. I’m not even an empty-nester and we just put up a few blicking eyeball lights and skull lights last night and, oh yeah, picked up candy which I had completely forgotten about!