Biscuits and cakes under £2.
This year's Halloween
My Tesco Trident, £2 or less.
Plastic trident from Tesco Express
Problem
How do I buy and cut a pumpkin to make a display? What do I need?
Answer
You have a choice. Buy a fresh pumpkin and enjoy eating it as well as having a display. Or buy a plastic pumpkin, ready-made, and store it for next year.
Where to buy? In the UK I saw fresh pumpkins in Waitrose, synthetic 'toy' pumpkins in Tesco Express.
You can buy a pumpkin cutting kit with instructions.
Cutting A Pumpkin
My friend says:
Slice the top off the pumpkin horizontally.
Scoop out the inside.
Draw the face on a sheet of paper. Either draw it yourself or copy from a picture on the internet or from the packaging with your pumpkin. Decide whether to use circles or triangles, small or large, what distance apart. Trace or copy onto the outside of the pumpkin with pencil, so you can work out the spacing and decide what looks best.
Cut three triangles, two for the eyes
Use it to eat fresh, make a pumpkin drink or heat it up as a soup. Recipes all over the internet. You can also make a pumpkin tart.
Set up outdoors by the gate or doorway, on the ground or perhaps on a small table to welcome guests. This can be done at a home or public meeting. (We did it at a Toastmasters International Speakers' Club in London, at a church hall beside a cemetery!
Place a tea light inside. After everybody has arrived and the meeting is about to start, extinguish the light for safety when moving. Carry the pumpkin indoors. Set it up and re-light the candle.
If you are really crafty in the kitchen, bake a Halloween cake. Orange icing. A black witches' hat on top. If not, go to an organized event.
Bake a cake. Instructions on craft site.
I had a delicious pumpkin meal at the American Club in Singapore. I was a member of the American Women's Association. We had pumpkin soup as a starter, a main course with pumpkin mixed in with the salad, and a choice of a pumpkin 'pudding', meaning a kind of mousse, or pumpkin tart.
To complete the look: orange paper napkins and an orange centrepiece.
Offer leftover fresh pumpkin display to somebody who has children. Save a plastic pumpkin for next year in your basement or attic. Note where it is stored by sending yourself a picture in an email in the storage place in your laptop or phone or computer. Copy details of where to find it into your online diary for a week before next year's Halloween. Send duplicate to spouse or other family member, or to shared calendar, so they don't waste money by duplicating purchases. You are also set for your next event.
If you missed having a Halloween party this year, prices come down in supermarkets the day or week afterwards. You can stock up with paperwear for next year.
What can you buy?
Paper cups.
A plastic tablecloth.
Plastic pumpkins.
Orange decorations and clothes.
Face paints. Masks. Fingernails.
Note any Halloween stories to tell.
Halloween Tablecloth
Lessons LearnedThe organizers of our party were brilliant. The Toastmaster of the evening wore an outfit. One person brought cakes. Another brought decorations. What else could we have done? Phoned each member personally the weekend before and on the day and asked them to wear either fancy dress or black and white and orange.
Food and Fruit
The halloween cakes looked great.
Our cakes and biscuits were an overdose of sugar. We could have brought orange fruit as an alternative for those on health food diets. That's easy. Oranges, ideally slices or in segments. Oranges. Satsumas. Mandarins. Apricots.
White hard boiled eggs on orange plates, or white plates with orange napkins alongside or under the plates.
Peanuts or black fruits such as black grapes or raisins in white bowls on orange paper napkins.
Invitations
Halloween invitations asking guests to wear outfits or white tee-shirts or orange ties and jewellery.
Useful Websites
Morrisons www.morrisons.co.uk
Tesco www.tesco.com
Waitrose www.waitrose.com
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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