Ah, All Hallows season. ‘Tis the most wonderful time of the year, non?
While morticians as a whole do tend to love the darquest of holidays, plastic witches and fog machines and traditional pumpkin carving aren’t REALLY reflective of our profession.
Here are a few craft suggestions for the REAL mortician in your life.
First, there is this piece of total unadulterated genius. It was made by Gabriel, a coworker of Lupe, one of my friends from mortuary school.
It’s an autopsied pumpkin! Seriously, holy shit. Let me tell you why this is so genius. I have long complained about the state of bodies that arrive at a funeral home after they have been autopsied by the Coroner’s office. This is the perfect visual, without being considered gross or exploitative or rotten.com-ish. It’s cute, even!
Literally autopsied bodies come to the funeral home after the torso has been sliced open, all the organs removed, and then just kinda stuffed back in with a poorly done basket stitch that leaves holes for guts to casually fall out. The skull is cut off by a circular saw and then just stuck back on. Purge, blood, and bile abound (see pumpkin visual above). If this was some manner of funeral home staff pumpkin carving contest, I hope Gabriel won it.
Second (much less impressive craft) was made by myself and Order member Mara. It’s just an example of how to use decomposed vegetables you have lying around your home for a fun autumnal party invite.
Step one is to gather decomposed produce. The more advanced the decomposition, the more it will call to mind the changing of the seasons and the “fall” into organic death for eventual spring rebirth.
If you write the invitation on a fresh piece of paper it’s liable to look out of place next to your primordial produce. I suggest casually setting parts of it on fire to give it that “ol timey” look.
Setting things on fire is especially fun for children. Have them imagine their own eventual cremation as a fun mental exercise!
There you have it, Martha Stewart for serious morticians. Happy Hallows, my pretties.