The Ultimate Guide to Hosting a Family Pumpkin Carving Party

Halloween is quickly approaching, and even if you don't participate in the darker themes of the season, if you're a parent with young kids, chances are you're thinking about at least carving a few pumpkins. Carved pumpkins don't always need to be scary. They can be creative, have words on them, or whatever else your mind can conjure.

If you're really excited about making jack-o-lanterns, then make an event out of it and have a pumpkin carving party, either just with your family or with friends as well. Like any other type of party, you'll want to be prepared, and this guide will get you ready for the season.

First Up: Invitations

If you're inviting friends, family, and people from around the neighborhood to your pumpkin carving party, then you'll need to coordinate the event so that the guests have time to prepare and attend. Consider planning the party during the week leading up to Halloween so that the pumpkins you carve don't start to get old or rot. As the event gets closer, consider sending out reminders via email to ensure that you know how many people are coming and you can prepare accordingly. 

Once you’ve decided on a day and time, think about what you want people to bring. In addition to bringing refreshments and snacks, consider requiring that everyone bring their own pumpkin. Be sure to add that on the invitations. You could even have a mini field trip with the attendees and go to the pumpkin patch the morning of the big party, and have fun picking out the perfect canvas for your future pumpkin art.

Consider the Location

Whether you’re having a big event or a small pumpkin carving party with your family, consider the location. Pumpkin carving can get very messy and sticky. We’d understand if you didn’t want to have to deal with the aftermath in your home. There are other places where you can gather, such as at the local park or an indoor or covered shelter at the forest preserve.

Gather Supplies

Although everyone else is bringing the pumpkins, you’ll want to ensure that you have enough of the other supplies. This is important regardless of whether you’re having a larger pumpkin carving event or just one with your kids.

Essential supplies that you’ll want to have on hand include:

• Butcher paper or newspaper to carve the pumpkins on, so you don't ruin your table
• Big bowls to collect seeds
• Buckets or trash bags to collect the rest of the goop in the pumpkins.
• Paper towels to clean the kids' hands as they get dirty.
• Matches and tea lights to light up the carved pumpkins.

Of course, if you’re carving, you’ll also want some type of cutting instrument. You can supply knives, but you’ll need to keep them under careful supervision. Your best bet is to get an official pumpkin carving kit that has all the tools you need. They also often contain child-safe cutting instruments. 

Decorations

If you’re inviting people over for the big pumpkin carving party, consider putting up a few fun but simple decorations. These creative touches can be as simple as pumpkin or fall-themed tablecloths. If you have a little more money in the decor budget, you could put up a banner or put out a few hay bales in the backyard. You could even challenge your kids to get creative and create fun artwork that you can hang on the walls and keep in your scrapbook for years to come.

You can also set the mood by introducing some fun music. Make sure it’s appropriate for kids. You can play songs from cartoons or family-friendly TV shows. You can also consider adding adult favorites, like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or other songs that fit the theme of the party.

Food at the Party

Since all of your favorite people will be at your party, why not make a big deal out of it and serve fun food? You can opt for more traditional snacks, such as candy corn, popcorn, and cupcakes, or you can really put people in the mood by providing Halloween-themed snacks. Here are a few ideas:

• Pumpkin Deviled Eggs – Add a dash of paprika on top of deviled eggs to give them the orange color of pumpkins. If you’re really creative, you can also make deviled eggs into eyeballs using cut olives as the pupils.

• Mummy Hot Dogs – Prepare crescent rolls in the oven and then cut them into strips and lay them over hot dogs to look like mummies.

• Frankenstein Rice Krispies – Add green coloring to homemade Rice Krispies treats and cover the top in chocolate so they look like Frankenstein's famous monster.

• Witches Fingers – Cut red peppers into triangles and put them at the end of chicken fingers to create witches fingers!

• Spider cheeseballs – Make tasty cheeseballs out of cream and goat cheese, roll them in black sesame seeds, and then stick small pretzel sticks in the sides for spider legs.

Finally, decide if you want to do anything with the pumpkin seeds that your guests dig out of their creations. Roasting pumpkin seeds is incredibly easy if you have an oven. 

Add oil and salt, bake them for 20-25 minutes, remove, cool, and serve. They can be the perfect snack after a long day of carving. 

Consider Carving Templates

Whether you're drawing or cutting pumpkins during your party, consider using carving templates or stencils. These are sheets that you can put over the pumpkin with a desired design on them, so you can create an expert-level jack-o-lantern without necessarily having the required skill. 

Templates come in many forms. You can get traditional templates of scary faces, witches, monsters, ghosts, and goblins. Some stencils allow you to trace the logo of your favorite sports team. You may also find stencils for carving or drawing animals, people, and places, pop culture designs, and more. You can buy or print a variety of these stencils and let your guests choose their favorite.

Activities

No pumpkin carving party would be complete without additional fun activities to entertain the guests along the way. Many of these activities will likely be different arts and crafts projects. Here are a few to consider:

• Halloween Cut-Outs – Get some construction paper and cut out shapes of bats, pumpkins, black cats, and more. 

• Make Mummies – You can wrap strips of gauze around many different items in your home to create mummies. Try it with pillows, mason jars, and more.

• Easy Ghosts – Use a permanent marker to put eyes on tissues to create ghosts.

Other fun activities can include creating a modeling or talent show for your pumpkins. Or cut “X’s” and “O’s” into small pumpkins and play a game of tic-tac-toe. Finally, consider roasting marshmallows over a fire once it gets dark outside to end the night.

Give the Kids Awards

A great way to end a memorable family pumpkin-carving party is to give out awards. Awards can include categories such as “Most Creative,” “Funniest Pumpkin,” and “Best Overall.” Once everyone is done carving, make a ceremony out of giving the awards.

If you want to ensure that everyone in attendance leaves happy, create enough awards so that everyone gets one. You can do that by making several “Honorable Mention” awards.

Safety 

Safety is key during your pumpkin carving party, especially when kids are involved. You don’t want kids getting their hands on sharp instruments or making a mess. So, the first step is to label everything at the event.

Put sharp instruments like knives in one place and label it so no one reaches in and touches something dangerous. Once the carving is complete, take the knives away and put them safely out of reach.

End the Night Right

Whether you invite friends to the festivities or you keep the party limited to just your family, end the night right by taking a group photo of everyone with their pumpkins. You can take the picture indoors or bring the pumpkins outside, light them up, and take a truly spooky Halloween photo. There are other fun ways to showcase your jack-o-lanterns as well, such as putting colored smoke balls inside and watching as the plumes of smoke come out of the carved faces.

Once you're done with the photos, get everyone in the family to help with the cleanup. Get help cleaning the tables, sweeping up, and putting all of the leftover snacks in containers. With the space clean, thank everyone for coming, and start planning next year's Halloween pumpkin carving party!

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Evgeny Atamanenko/Shutterstock.com