I always find it a little funny that when we visit our local pumpkin patch, the pumpkins we choose from are not from the vine but laid out in rows by size, variation, and even color. Kind of like picking out a T-shirt on a clothing rack, except pumpkins are a lot heavier and pricklier. Understandably, it’s not advisable to have children pulling pumpkins from vines, because their vines feel like hundreds of tiny needles and require a decent pair of garden gloves.

This year, we got our pumpkins off of a spontaneously grown vine in our backyard. They were small but there were 7 total! We couldn’t keep them on the vine or it would have overrun our entire (teeny) backyard, which we shared with neighbors. But they came early and in time for Fall and they were ours. However you find your perfect pumpkin this Halloween season, whether at a grocery store, a pumpkin patch, or from your own vine that was spontaneously grown in your backyard from the seeds of the previous years’ carvings, even if it's not the biggest one in the bunch, don't forget to give it a good hug. I hope it gives you a good dose of that Halloween Spirit.