Get a pumpkin from the store? Hmph. When I was a kid, the tradition was to get pumpkins from the garden to carve. Yes, we grew our own pumpkins, and Mom would cook and puree and can them for pie-making later. Now, with no room for a garden, we usually take the kids to the local “pumpkin patch” where they have a petting zoo and hay rides and such, and they take them out into the fields to pick their own pumpkins. I have a soft spot for the weird warty ones no one else likes.
As for decorating: my family loves Halloween, and we’re already decorated. My wife asked me to get the stuff out of the shed last weekend, and she put everything up while I was at the gym. Central to the whole thing is a skeleton we’ve named “Annie” (full name: Annie Rexia), who gets dressed in a silly skirt and bra, topped off with a wig and googly-eye glasses, and a feather boa. She hangs from the living room ceiling.
Sure, I still go and get pumpkins from the local sellers around Halloween. My kids are 14 and 15 now, so they don’t think it’s as fun, but we still do it every year.
When I was a kid, pumpkins weren’t really very easy or cheap to find in England, we used to carve swedes (no, not the people, I think you call 'em rutabagas). It’s a lot harder than a pumpkin to carve, for a start, you have to hollow it out for the candle. Halloween wasn’t such a big thing then anyway, Guy Fawkes (aka Bonfire Night) was the bigger event, but now pumpkins and Halloween have taken over.
Some years I buy a pumpkin to carve if they’re cheap, but I doubt I will this year, I have nowhere to put it for a start. I only have enough space for a few squash plants, so I grow eating pumpkins, I’m not wasting them on a short-lived decoration.
We still take the grandkids to a local pumpkin patch/corn maze/fall carnival every year. They enjoy picking out and carving pumpkins, and as long as they do then so will I!
I used to do it for Halloween for the first year or two after I bought my house. Just like when we were kids! But when I put the jack-o-lanterns outside, the squirrels devoured them pretty quickly.
In more recent years, I might buy one of those miniature ones as a decoration but not carve it up.