Alpena Household Displays Over One Hundred Pumpkins

While many partake in Halloween pumpkin carving festivities, one Alpena household has gone above and beyond carving over 100 pumpkins this year. Jessica Hatch, founder of the tradition, said, “We’ve been doing this every year for 21 years. This is one of the largest displays we’ve had in the past few years. We’ve started off with 13, so we’ve grown every year since we started.”

This task takes a whole team and almost a week to prepare.“There are about 15 people in total that help,” said Hatch. “Lots of friends, lots of family, some people even fly in for this event.”

The pumpkins aren’t just the typical Jack-O-Lantern face design. The carvers get creative with their work. “We always try to pick some of the things that are popular with the kids,” said Hatch. “Like this year we had the Paw Patrol Pumpkins, the Bluey pumpkin, every year we try to do that. Then whatever new popular thing, the Barbie movie was big this year, so we had to do some Barbie pumpkins. The Electric Mayhem was a show on Disney Plus that got pretty popular this year. We always try to find a few things that are relevant but we also try to do a few old school things that other people will recognize as well.”

The pumpkins will all be on display Halloween night from 5pm to midnight on the corner of Ferncliff and Willowdale Drive. Thankful for the community support, Hatch said, “It means just as much to us for everyone to come out and see what they do, as it does for us to actually do this.”