In Praise of the Pumpkin

A more modest-sized pumpkin is this year's nod to Halloween at my parents' house. It's fitting that the pumpkin is smaller and less gaudy because my parents will be leaving that house two week's before the actual holiday.

I tend to view pumpkins as emblems of autumn, in general, though, so displaying pumpkins anytime from September through the end of November seems appropriate to me. I mean, what else but pumpkin pie do we eat as the finale to our Thanksgiving feasts?

It's really the Jack-o-Lantern that represents Halloween specifically. So I fully embrace pumpkin exhibition at any time during the fall, especially alongside a pile of colorful leaves or a pot of late-blooming flowers. I know I've probably conveyed this before, but I love everything that smacks of fall, and one glance at a pumpkin is enough to send me into full autumnal revery.

So enjoy my second pumpkin-themed post, and if you find the writing a little sappy and overwrought... as Lee Botts would say, fooey on you.