>>151028883
You are doing it wrong.
You carve the pumpkin the night before Halloween, you only put it out when the trick-or-treaters come out, and you take it back in before you close up for the night. You coat the portions of the pumpkin you carved with vaseline, if you're using an actual candle with real fire then you don't need to coat the interior with anything, the fire will take care of the bugs unless they are super thick that night.
Unless you live someplace icy cold, you don't leave a carved pumpkin out for more than a few hours.
Once Halloween is over you can either be a wasteful fuck and toss the jack-o-lantern or you can break it down, boil it, scrape the skin off, puree it and then use it for Thanksgiving's pumpkin pies.
One jumbo pumpkin makes enough puree to make anywhere from 12 - 20 pumpkin pies. You just freeze the puree you don't use and it keeps for years.
