Pumpkin Carving Party Eve : annual party traditions and a chaotic trip to ASDA

I love pumpkins and carving pumpkins and pumpkin food and pumpkin candles, and in 2022 we decided to throw a pumpkin Carving Party.  

It was raining, and we bought a gazebo, and we put our kitchen table outside and had about 8ish families over to carve pumpkins.  We made pumpkin snacks.  It was fun!

We didn't do a party in 2023 (due to imminent arrival of twins) but we did somehow have a party in 2024 (with nearly 1 year old twins??) We invited 15 families.  9 came, 15 kids and 20 adults (at least, that's what the RSVP situation was).

Tomorrow we are hosting the same party again. I have decided I love hosting the same party every year.  It's easy, we know what the set up us.  People who come year after year know what they are getting into (it's a bring your own pumpkin affair).  We bought some new pumpkin-guts bins and sharpies this year,and massively reduced the food offering (hot dog mummies still on the list, and cracker spiders, and a halloween spooky fruit salad).

This morning we went to ASDA to buy our pumpkins and some more halloween-y decorations.  The kids asked if they could wear costumes, which of course they could.

I am sometimes so entertained by what our family must look like to the rest of the world.  This is normal, right?

I had a somewhat secret ambition to buy some more autumn decoration for the house, which I did in the form of this discount wooden sign:

Which now sits on our mantle with my autumnal candles.  I also got a giant stuffed pumpkin, because the kids had taken my tiny crocheted pumpkins and my medium stuffed pumpkin so it seemed like we needed more stuffed pumpkins in the house.  

The afternoon was spent playing dress up and tidying the house and then making the house a chaos mess again. 

Mostly I am excited for the party tomorrow.

We always run the party as a "drop in" for 3 hours in the afternoon on the last Sunday before Halloween.  This works well for a few reasons:

• We can invite a lot of people so people can come and leave at anytime
• It's definitely not over a meal time.
• It's always clock change day, which makes the day awful and weird, so it's nice to have a fun afternoon activity to drag everyone through to the later bedtime

We also usually have one family stay for dinner with us after (and help clean up) which makes it even more fun.

This year we invited 16 families, 11 have said yes, with an estimated 19 kids and 19 adults.  It always seems like it will be too much (we don't have a giant house) but it's always worked OK before, so fingers crossed it works OK again.

And if it doesn't... then I guess people won't come back next year.

Do you (or have you ever) throw(n) the same party year after year?  Have you ever been invited to the same party year after year?

I wish I had another year on year party I could throw.  Like a Valentine's Day party.  Some other minor holiday in a rubbish time of year.