By Kelsi Peace, Managing Editor

Armed with knives and small saws, my roommates and I began our Saturday night. Plans for our roommate pumpkin carving night had been in the works all week, and we proudly bought pumpkins , a carving kit and candles to light the jack-o-lanterns.

After spreading out old newspapers and meticulously washing the pumpkins, we picked up our knives and prepared.

And then: silence.

We labored over carving the top out for a few minutes before one of us stopped and said, “This is really hard.”

As we looked around our small kitchen table, we noticed each one of us was trying to cut the top off our pumpkins differently. Looking at my square-shaped hole, one of my roommates told me I was having trouble because I was doing it wrong.

“No,” I told her. “This is how my dad always does it.”

I can still see my dad cutting a square in the top of my pumpkin and handing me the stringy, gushy inside that still makes me shudder slightly when I grab that first fistful of pumpkin guts.

I remember my mom handing me a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol to remove the wobbly permanent marker face that remained after I’d carved my pumpkin. And when it was all done, we lined up our pumpkins and took a photo, which would join all the other years of toothy smiles and bizarre pumpkin grins.

I’m sure my parents never thought twice about my fiveyear- old self watching them do those things, or considered that fifteen years later, those holiday memories would dictate my own holiday traditions. We often forget the little eyes that watch us, and how often the little things we do stick with those small eyes for years to come.

ACU students impact the community through an array of ministries – including Treadaway Kids, church youth groups and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

And what for students could be just a few hours in a day could mean an ingrained tradition or attitude to an Abilenian kid.

So as you guide other people’s children around on Halloween, Bowl for Kids’ Sake in November or don a costume and hit the streets of Abilene next Wednesday, bear in mind your potential for impact.

Who knows what idiosyncrasy could stick with the little eyes that watch you.

As for me, I’ll continue to cut squares in the top of my pumpkins and take a picture of the finished product, even though I take a picture every year. It’s what my parents always do.