Prayer Pumpkins

I posted this idea last year on my personal blog. It was such a hit with the kids that we are definitely doing it again, so I thought I’d share it with all of you.

I love pumpkins. I don't know what it is about them (and squash and gourds) but I think they are so beautiful! And I don't see any reason that they should only be out for Halloween-- to me they go with the Thanksgiving theme perfectly, so if you decorate with pumpkins instead of ghosts or monsters, your decorations can last for a couple months!

Last year I found mini pumpkins on clearance at Lowe’s, so I bought 2 bags full (maybe 9 or 10 pumpkins) for $1.

I let Miss Magoo paint a couple, but I wanted to figure out something cool to do with the others. I kept picturing writing on them with a Sharpie, but I couldn't really decide what I wanted to do.

Finally the idea came to me: Prayer pumpkins!

What are prayer pumpkins, you ask? Well, they are pumpkins with names of people we are praying for written on them.

Miss Magoo and I sat down and I wrote on the pumpkins while she came up with the names. I would start with something like, "I'm writing Aunt Julie. Who is in Aunt Julie's family?" Then as she came up with the names, we would talk about relationships, like he is her husband and he is also their dad. They are brother and sister. That sort of thing.

I made a different pumpkin for each family of my sister and my husband's 2 brothers. Then another pumpkin has all the grandparents on it, another has our family on it, and another has random friends and family on it. We still had a couple left, so as we thought of people we added more names.

Now when we sit down to pray for a meal, we can pick up a pumpkin and pray for a few people. Most of the pumpkins have about 6 names on them, so that isn't too much, and it doesn’t make prayers overly lengthy.

I wrote on the pumpkins with Sharpie metallic markers, and I think they turned out pretty cool looking. They also lasted a really long time- I finally threw them away around Christmas time, but they still hadn’t molded.

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