GOURDS!

Written by

Matthew Groff

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I bought gourds this morning at Trader Joe’s. You know, the Fall/Autumn/Halloween gourds that come out on October 1st, and are sold through Thanksgiving. Well, it was two tiny pumpkins and a gourd to be exact, but as I get deeper into the season, I will buy more of these. I wouldn’t call it a weakness, but it is the one seasonal decoration that I indulge.

Soon, most likely this weekend, we’ll go to our storage space and get the box of Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations to put up. Most of what is in there are silly, kid-like things to put up. Also in that box, there is a collection of dollar store small glittery pumpkins. Soon our kitchen table will be a collection of both real and fake gourds. You know, how the Pilgrims intended.

When the kid was little, two or three, she would paint the white pumpkins to add to the decorations. I don’t think she does that anymore. And I start to wonder how long we’ll keep decorating the apartment with these cartoonish and child-like decorations?

My parents kept reusing all the old holiday decorations until I went away to college. With me, the final child was out of the house, so my mom decided that it was time to have more grown up decorations for all the holidays. Gone were the doe-eyed cats and bats, to be replaced with wreaths of fake orange leaves and gourds. (But her gourds were plastic and ceramic.) Christmas even got more mature with an all-white lights on an all-white tree. You get the idea…

I have a feeling we’ll do the same thing when our kid heads out of here, to college or where ever.

But I like my gourds.

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4 responses to “GOURDS!”

  1. Darts and Letters Avatar
    Darts and Letters

    You’re an early bird. We’re on the opposite end of the spectrum……….we wait too long and by the time we get to the pumpkin patch, everything is half-rotten, the patch in late October is like an accident scene, it seems like all that’s left over are the mutants (which can work well in creative hands). A couple years ago we got our pumpkins and gourds mixed up, one of my boys attempted to carve a larger gourd. He saw it through but it was dicey.

    The gourds are a good tradition, though. I like it when they start showing up on peoples’ porches. Some of them are works of art. Then you’ve got your Martha Stewart types that go crazy with their arrangements.

    What’s analogous to the fake Christmas tree? The fake jack o lantern?

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    1. Matthew Groff Avatar
      Matthew Groff

      Apple picking is the other one we do. We drive way the hell out in upstate, and pick way too many apples that we never eat. My wife will make one amazing pie, and then the rest of the apples just spoil on the counter.

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      1. Darts and Letters Avatar
        Darts and Letters

        That sounds like a cool tradition. Upstate New York sounds like a nice place to go to. Do you ever venture to the Hudson Valley for stuff like that? Whenever I read about New Yorkers who’ve moved out of the city for a quieter existence, it seem like Hudson Valley is invoked a lot. But maybe it’s not exactly the kind of place you go to for apple picking, I dunno……

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      2. Matthew Groff Avatar
        Matthew Groff

        Hudson Valley and Upstate sometimes can be interchangable terms. In my opinion, Hudson Valley is anything that is close to the river, and I think of Upstate as being north of Westerchester and Rockland counties. The better apple orchards are to the northwest of the City, though I know people who swear by some places in NJ. It depends on how far you want to travel.

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