Spooky Season in May? Our Halfway to Halloween Tradition Lives On!

I know I’m extremely late with this post. I should have written it months ago, but with all the craziness that’s been plaguing my life recently, I figured it was time to focus on something fun — a little reminder of the good moments we’ve had over the past couple of months.

Over the years, we’ve started a little tradition we call the “Halfway Holidays.” Basically, we celebrate Halloween in May, Thanksgiving in June, and Christmas in July. Why? Because it lets us enjoy all those cozy, comfort-heavy meals that make more sense during colder months.

For those who don’t know, fall and winter hit around these months here, unlike back home where fall begins in September. So instead of turning our kitchen into a sauna during the Argentine spring and summer (October, November, and December), we do our heavy cooking when it’s nice and cool outside.

So, let me start with our Halfway to Halloween celebration back in May.

Pizza is, of course, our biggest safety net when we don’t feel like cooking. Luckily, we discovered this amazing pizza place here in Córdoba called Dom that offers styles that aren’t your typical Argentine pizzas. I highly recommend them — they’ve become our go-to comfort food.

We also made a pumpkin pie from scratch, using cinnamon to create the eyes and mouth. And if you think it looked good on the outside, let me tell you — it looked even better on the inside, and it tasted fantastic!

In addition to pie and other finger foods...

We decided to make a pumpkin cake using the leftover pumpkin purée. The cake itself didn’t look particularly menacing… until we added a Facehugger from Aliens popping out of the top. Suddenly, dessert became a little more dangerous! Jokes aside, it was absolutely delicious.

But wait — we weren’t done baking yet! Alongside the pumpkin pie and pumpkin cake, we also made an apple pie with claw marks across the top. Because, you know, Halloween isn’t Halloween without something spooky.

Of course, no Halloween celebration is complete without pumpkin carving. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the classic round pumpkins this year, so we had to improvise with other varieties. The good thing is that we used every bit of them — the inside for our pie filling and cake mix, and the outside for carving fun designs.

Our friend Melisa carved one that looked like a bat — though I’ll admit, I initially thought it was the Batman symbol. She quickly corrected me!

My husband went with a more traditional jack-o’-lantern, complete with eyes, a mouth (a bit bucktooth, but charming), and a witch’s hat.

As for mine… well, I tried to make it scary, but it ended up looking like a cross between a clown and a blow-up doll. Definitely not what I was going for, but hey — art is subjective.

The only thing better than a wall full of masks, spooky posters, and delicious food is sharing it all with a loving partner and a beautiful friend. That’s what made our Halfway to Halloween — and later, our Halfway to Thanksgiving — so special.

Melisa also inspired us to take these photos with ceramic Jack-O’-Lanterns covering our faces. Honestly, they turned out amazing — weirdly artsy and perfectly on theme.

Before the night ended, we decided to recreate a scene from The Strangers. I played the part of the unconscious victim about to meet their end. Let’s just say we might have missed our calling in horror cinema.

Despite all the stress and chaos we’ve had this year, we always find a way to come together and have a good time. Traditions like these remind me that even when life gets hectic, there’s always room for creativity, laughter, and pie — lots of pie.

And since real Halloween is now less than a month away, we’re already planning our next spooky adventure.

But first, stay tuned… because in my next post, I’ll tell you how we celebrated our Halfway to Thanksgiving.