It’s Fall Y’all (and Pumpkin Season)

I love fall. I do. I love everything about it.

Crisp, cooler weather. Leaves in vibrant oranges and yellows. Football. Soups and chilis with warm, cozy flavors. Sweaters and hoodies. And pumpkins.

All the pumpkins.

The first fall after we got married, when I pulled out the boxes of fall decorations, my husband’s response was, “I didn’t know pumpkins would play such a large role in our relationship.”

To that point, I think his only engagement with pumpkins had been carving one for Halloween every year with the kids and devouring a delicious loaf of my mother-in-law’s pumpkin bread.

But, pumpkins are so much more in my world (and now his).

You could call me one of those “pumpkin people” that has gotten into the somewhat recent craze of all things pumpkin (although I have have my limits). I definitely enjoy a pumpkin spice latte and have been known to stock up on pumpkin items from my local Trader Joe’s and even enjoy a good pumpkin beer every once in a while during the season.

But, my affinity for pumpkins goes much deeper than the barrage of “pumpkin everything” marketing campaigns that show up this time of year. It’s my birth right.

I am a Halloween baby. Yep, my birthday is October 31, and I grew up as my parents’ “little pumpkin” my whole life. Trick-or-treating was a way of life to celebrate another year around the sun (and consequently as a young child I assumed everyone dressed up and went door to door asking for candy on their birthday). My birthday cake every year has the tiny candy pumpkins on it…and I admit that the first time I see them in the grocery store I have to purchase them, even if it is August 2nd.

As I’ve gotten older, I have come to realize that pumpkins symbolize so much more for me than decorations and birthdays.

They remind me of family – my loved ones and spending time together making memories. When the sunlight starts to shine differently through the windows in September, I always feel a twinge of nostalgia and anticipation at the same time. Nostalgia for the memories of autumns passed and anticipation for the new moments ahead.

They symbolize the Saturday apple-picking days of my childhood that have passed and those that are ahead with my own family. The weekends of college and professional football watching with a pot of chili simmering on the stove. The family mountain weekends taking hikes and watching movies after a dip in the hot tub. The excitement of picking a Halloween costume and then walking the neighborhood, filling a plastic pumpkin with candy. The family birthday celebrations (me, my dad, my aunt, and my grandmother all have birthdays the same week!) and phone calls from long-distance loved ones as we wish each other happy birthday. The gathering of loved ones at a table to once again share a meal of treasured family recipes at Thanksgiving.

Every year when the pumpkins arrive, these are the thoughts that flood my mind.

The traditions. The memories. The good stuff that is still to come.

And then I buy all the pumpkins I can fit in my basket at the grocery store.