I like pumpkins on my front porch this time of year. I like Mickey Mouse (duh!). And today’s scheduled tweet is about the cool pumpkins that are all around Main Street at Disney World.

While this blog is never going to evolve into some craft oriented Disney home decoration blog, this is one of my favorite decorations we have out at Halloween. To be honest, my ability to carve pumpkins is pretty weak (and I have a half inch deep scar on my hand from slicing a bagel and another where I cut a millimeter of skin off the top of a finger while camping that makes me skittish around knives not directed at a cutting board).

I don’t know where I first saw a pumpkin set up like this, or if it was strictly something I saw as a plastic pumpkin, but it is really easy. The pumpkins last for several weeks on the porch, and it is a nicely subtle Disney decoration anyone can do in minutes. (If this was your patented idea, feel free to let me know and I will happily credit you!)

You need one large pumpkin, ideally one that sits flat and is fairly wide. Then two small pumpkins for the ears. The fresher the better, because poking the hole in the pumpkin will eventually cause it to rot away. The more the top two stay on without help, the better, but as you will see in my pictures, I never do a great job of getting that straight. Lastly, I use two small wooden dowels to hold the ears on like this one. Long enough to reach the bottom of the pumpkin, with several inches sticking out of the top.

Figure out where you want the ears, then simply punch a hole that is slightly smaller than your dowel in your pumpkin where you want to affix the ears. The dowel should be really tight going in. This is the ear pumpkin here with the hole:

Push the dowel in the hole on the large pumpkin. It should ideally reach the bottom of the pumpkin inside for support.

Then cut the dowel so it is a little shorter than the top pumpkin, and slide your top pumpkin on the dowel (it should also be as tight a fit as possible), and you are done.

It looks great from the road (day and night, actually under our Mickey lights!), very natural and not plastic looking, all easily for under 10 bucks.