Pumpkin carving several carved pumpkins on a table

Pumpkin Carving

No matter what your age, a perfect date idea during Halloween for a group or a couple is pumpkin carving. You can drive to the store together and buy the pumpkins, then take them home, browse the Internet to find the perfect stencil, lie out newspaper or plastic on the table and then carve away.

You can have a contest to see which group creates the best pumpkin. Make sure to save the seeds, because you can make some fabulous roasted pumpkin seeds. Then after the pumpkins are lit and sitting out on the front porch, go inside, then eat your roasted seeds, make some popcorn, and watch a scary movie.

Doesn’t that sound like an amazingly creative group date idea? Of course, you can do it with just the two of you, but it will be loads of fun with a group.

Three pumpkin carvings on a porch.

What you need for this pumpkin carving group date idea: 

You need to buy the pumpkins and any carving utensils that you will need. You can use large black plastic bags as the table cloth or just buy one from a dollar store. That way when you are done carving the pumpkins you can just roll everything up in the plastic table cloth and throw it away for super easy clean up.

The recipe for the roasted pumpkin seeds is below.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Take as many pumpkin seeds as you have and WASH all the slime off them. Pat the pumpkin seeds dry with a paper towel. Preheat the oven to 300. Make sure to sprinkle the seeds with salt; you also can add other seasonings, depending on what you like, for example, garlic powder, paprika, etc.

You can also coat the seeds with melted butter before you sprinkle them with the seasoning. After that, bake them until golden brown. You will have to stir them once or twice so that they roast evenly. And there you have it, yummy homemade roasted pumpkin seeds.

Large pile of pumpkin seeds

My commentary on this date: 

One chilly October evening, a group of us gathered at a friend’s apartment with the idea to have a pumpkin-carving contest. We each were given a pumpkin to carve. An acquaintance of my friend donated 20 of them from her pumpkin patch. Isn’t that cool? She straight up had a pumpkin patch, awesome.

I strategically picked one out and while looking at it came up with a brilliant idea. It was a large group of guys and girls, not technically a group date, but pretty darn close. There was definitely flirting going on.

When it was time to begin, we all grabbed our carving utensils. I first sketched what I wanted the pumpkin to look like, then after admiring my brilliance, started carving. The other people watched in amazement as my steady hands went about the business of creating a masterpiece. Piece by piece my creation came to life. After about an hour and a half, I was finished.

Garfield, that witty kitty, sat before me, I impressed even myself that evening. Even though I didn’t specifically have a date with me, it was still an amazing evening. I enjoyed the time with the girls that were there.

More recently the past few years I have a tradition with some of my married friends where we get together and they bring their kids over and we do some pumpkin carving. It is always such a fun time.

Stranger Things carved pumpkin on a counter top
(My favorite of all time pumpkin carving)

Do you have experience with this date idea? Let me know in the comments how it went and if your date, spouse, significant other liked it. You can buy a copy of the book 101 Creative Dates: ideas, tips, and personal experiences from the life of a hopeless romantic here or visit the shop.

Here are other creative date ideas you might like:

Horseback Riding

Horse and Carriage Ride

Go Kart Racing

Ghost in the Graveyard

Halloween Romance