World Pumpkin Carving Championship

May I have the envelope. And the winner of the 2008 World Pumpkin Carving Championship with a resounding 5 first place votes is..... Chris T with Pumpkin # 8!!!!! The other fantastic carvers from second place to... well, last place (there is no good way to put that is there?) are as follows: Pumpkin & Carver #2 Sarah W #4 Leanne A #1 Caroline G #6 Amanda M Tied #7 and #5, Sarah O and Michael B #3 Janice A I was a little worried that people would start thinking we had this thing rigged, but Chris came through to pull ahead of the organisers. In case you were wondering the votes were weighted, giving each entry 5 points for a first place, 3 points for second and 1 for third. So Chris you will have the WPCC Cup sent/brought to your home and your name engraved as this year's Champion!! Thank you all for participating, I hope next years event can be even bigger and better. Until then, Sarah (Canadian) and Leanne (International) co-chairs of the WPCC

To keep things fair and prevent hate mail from being flung across the Internet in a fury of resentment for having lost this years championship, we will not say which of our fine judges made each of the comments. We will however tell you who the fine folks were that took the time to make this year's competition one of the most closely fought races thus far! We like to honour tradition here at the WPCC and so it may seem like nepotism to have so many family members on the judging panel, they were here when it started (as you can read about in the first post) and so until they make the disastrous move of not casting a vote, we will keep them on the panel. No one knows who's pumpkin is who's and Leanne and I had to take a whole course on ethics, so trust us, we don't carve and tell. So this year's official judges! Jayne W (my mom) Penny W (my sister) Melissa W (my other sister) Laurie A (Leanne's mom) Barrie A (Leanne's dad) Bob M (Sarah's friend) Meagan L (...

For those who have not had the privelege of hoisting the World Pumpkin Carving Championship Cup above their head and drinking beer out of it, here is a picture of the prize at stake. But bragging rights is really what we're all seeking. I need to beef up the Achievements section of my CV.

Pumpkin #1 Pumpkin #2 Pumpkin #3 Pupmkin #4 Pumpkin #5 Pumpkin #6 Pumpkin #7 Pumpkin #8

It all started back in 2004 when two friends found themselves with a great distance between them, a strong sense of competition and a need for a purpose to their carving. I mean seriously, when you really step back and think about the absurdity of taking a perfectly good vegetable, cutting open the top, taking out all of the insides, insisting on cooking the part that you would normally throw away, spending hours labouring over a carving, then lighting a candle in what was a perfectly good pumpkin only to throw it away at the end? Seems stupid now doesn't it? Think if we did that with watermelons... Well it's not. It's tradition, it's creative, it's fun and it's totally wasteful, but we'll overlook that last one. So the tradition began as a photo contest, as the opportunity to judge each others pumpkins in person wasn't possible. The first year was a bit of a wash. I think I carved 'Happy Birthday' in mine and Leanne carved a tugboat. Either way...