October Traditions
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” – Anne Shirley (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
Every October right about the time the leaves change but the air is still warm, the kids and I meet my cousin Alecia and her kids for an afternoon at the pumpkin patch. We have done this since our oldest boys were small. Every year we wonder if it’s the year they say they don’t want to, or they aren’t going to do these things anymore. Every year they say yes.
Alecia and I have always been close, like weirdo sisters who didn’t get to see each other all the time. We’d have sleepovers at our grandparents’ and stay up late telling stories or giggling into our blankets as we listened to them yell incoherently to each other in bed after they took out their hearing aids and teeth. We listened intently to our grandfather’s stories and advice. We let him chase us around the house and played innumerable card and board games. We had tea with grandma and ate her world’s thinnest pancakes. She often said it was going to storm because the kids were acting wild when we were together. We always seemed to be with each other around Halloween, building haunted houses in our basements for our families to walk through or watching scary movies while our moms talked upstairs.
As we grew up we started having regular coffee dates. We ran races together. We had babies around the same time. She did my hair. I painted for her. We rode on trains and attended craft fairs. Sometimes we were too busy to do the traditions, sometimes we stuck to them. Our one constant every year, has been the pumpkin patch.
When we arrived we headed straight for the corn pool, a giant barn filled with corn to play in and recently a slide was added. It is where we always go first. I feel like this is honestly the best place to start for us. The kids can wrestle, (we have four active boys and an energetic girl between us) run, talk, play and get their wild energy out while Alecia and I catch up. Usually, we do this with a cup of coffee from the Country Store at the entrance but for the last two years, their coffee shop has been closed when we arrive (not cool Center Grove). We survived. Once the kids got bored, there were plenty of options to move on to.
Center Grove in Cambridge is our pumpkin patch of choice. It has grown a little each year. When I looked around driving in this year, it was kind of incredible to think how much they have expanded. We were able to take the boys all the way through in a wagon those first years. I, first of all, would need to be the one in the wagon now – Ben is much bigger than I am. Second, I can not fathom dragging a small child there and back these days – perhaps I’m getting old and tired. But thankfully there is a hayride to accommodate those of us who no longer possess that youthful vigor – also, as I said – they’ve expanded a LOT. (I’m not THAT old.)
So, we headed over to the jumbo bouncy pillows and watched the kids jump and slide around. They roped (fake) cows for a while. Then we all did the enormous slides over and over, racing each other down the hill, trying out all the different options: burlap vs felt bags, superman pose vs sitting, etc. I love the slides. We watched some goats playing and new, the last couple years, were bottle feeding the babies. So, of course, we had to do it. The baby goats were so cute and ate really quickly. That was a fun little bonus.
We walked through the storybook houses and made weird poses for photos. We talked about all the years we had been coming here and the funny things we had done over that time. We petted all the animals we could find. Our family stopped for our usual apple cider donut haul. They picked up their special treats. We somehow didn’t even get out to the apples, sunflowers, train, or pumpkins. We were having so much fun just being together. We took some last photos, exchanged gifts and hugs at the car, and headed home in the dark.
There is always a sense of nostalgia and time standing still on that drive home. Each of us takes out an apple cider donut and we talk about the fun things we did. We’ve been doing this pumpkin patch thing for so many years. I know at some point there will likely be a last. The boys will grow up and it will end. But I’ve been spending my Octobers with Alecia my whole life and I am so glad I live in a world with that tradition.
