The Most Sincere Pumpkin Patch
If you’re new here, let me catch you up on the saga. Every fall, Seasonal Affective Disorder rolls in like an uninvited guest, and I thought, Hey, maybe pumpkins will help. So, this spring, I planted a variety of pumpkins, carefully labeled and numbered, with the idea that harvesting them in the fall would bring me joy.
What I didn’t realize was that the four pumpkins I grew last year were composted—seeds and all—and that compost got spread throughout my entire garden. By late spring, I had over 300 pumpkin plants. Did I mention I live in a subdivision? Not a farm. Just a regular backyard. But the vines did not care about property lines. They climbed trellises (trell-eye?), stretched over the fence, and even grew into the neighbor’s tree. By the end of the season, I had harvested 167 pumpkins.
So I had an idea: I donated them to an early childhood daycare, set up a beautiful display, and read It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to the kids. I told them that if their pumpkin patch was the best, the Great Pumpkin would visit with gifts. (Later, thanks to my Unicorn Fund, I granted $2,000 for new children’s books, which would arrive on Halloween—courtesy of the Great Pumpkin.)
Then someone pointed out: “Chris, it’s not the best pumpkin patch, it’s the most sincere pumpkin patch.” And that got me thinking—what does it mean for a pumpkin patch to be sincere?
And then, right there at the daycare, I found out.
As I was reading to the kids, one of them lifted their pumpkin above their head. It was my favorite pumpkin of the whole bunch—gnarly and weird and perfect. I mentioned how much I loved it, and the kid walked up and handed it to me. I thanked them, overwhelmed by the sweetness of the moment.
Then another kid did the same.
And another.
One by one, every child walked up and gave me their pumpkin. They saw that giving made me happy, and so they all wanted to do the same. It was a genuine, unprompted act of kindness, and suddenly, I understood—this was sincerity. Thiswas the sincerest pumpkin patch.
(And don’t worry—I told them all to take their pumpkins back. What was I going to do, start this whole thing over again next year?)
The pumpkins may have taken over my yard, my fence, and my neighbor’s tree, but they also gave me something I didn’t expect—a real understanding of joy, generosity, and sincerity.
Maybe next year, I’ll grow less pumpkins.
…But probably not.
