You see this picture here? The one demonstrating the way all of us have begun carving our pumpkins since childhood? Turns out, it’s totally wrong— and there’s an easy trick to make it all better. It comes to us from Happy Hooligans, and it is brilliantly, head-smackingly-simple: carve off the bottom of your pumpkin, not the top.
Are you having a total “Duh!” moment right now? We did, too, and yet everybody we know has always, always started pumpkin carving by slicing that little circle in the top, painstakingly scooping out the seeds, and then putting the “lid” back on the finished jack-o-lantern. When you carve out the bottom instead, however, everything gets easier:
- The seeds and guts will all fall out immediately, pulled by the bottom of the pumpkin. At most, you’ll have to give it a quick scraping to make the inside neat and clean. No more tedious scooping!
- Since nobody’s going to see it, you can throw the bottom piece away for good. Not only will the pumpkin look better, you can use this method to make it sit more steadily on your porch.
- Instead of balancing a candle in the pumpkin and worrying about it the whole time, you can now set your pumpkin OVER the candle, securing it way more safely. And if you’re using LED candles with fake flames? Literally no worries!
So, so smart. Check out Happy Hooligans’ original post for more tips and decoration ideas. Are you going to try this idea this year? Have you ever heard of it before? And if you have heard of it— why have you been holding out on us?!