Why toss a pumpkin to send off 2020?

Madison Children’s Museum always has fun with New Year’s celebrations but this year the transition to 2021 is more symbolic—and more full of both hope and foreboding—than ever. It’s been a challenging year for everyone; for some families in our community who have lost jobs, homes, and loved ones, or who have been re-traumatized by police violence, racism, and xenophobia, this year has been particularly painful. 

The healing power of play

Children process their world, including traumatic experiences, through play. When a child has experienced trauma or a loss they will often need to “play it out.” To an adult, a child’s drawings of coronaviruses or having their toys “die” may seem ghoulish, but that kind of play is often what children need to understand and cope with big, scary concepts.

At Madison Children’s Museum, we believe in helping children to learn through play. We also believe in making the healing power of play available to every child in our community. So, for our send-off of 2020, we created an easily recognizable symbol: a big pumpkin with the words 2020 on it—and we tossed it off of our roof to shatter five stories down onto the surface of our former parking lot. We filmed it from multiple angles. We had fun with it. And it felt good… (view the video at the end of this blog post)

Why a pumpkin?

Kids are familiar with pumpkins and, so soon after Halloween, they’re probably also familiar with how pumpkins break and decay. Unlike a ball—which many kids think of as a toy to be protected—kids will understand that it is okay for a pumpkin to break. Kids may also be familiar with the pumpkin as a symbol for transformation, like the one that becomes a coach to take Cinderella to the ball. With the addition of an easily readable 2020 on the pumpkin, it becomes an accessible—and disposable—symbol for the year.

Why drop it off the roof?

As any parent or caregiver can tell you, kids love drama and spectacle. Adults may understand that a ball falling down a rail might symbolize the new year. Kids need a somewhat more literal symbol, so we’re not just dropping our 2020 pumpkin, we’re letting it go SPLAT! Seeing the pumpkin shatter on impact helps emphasize that 2020, with all of its hardships, is really and truly over. Unlike a cartoon bad guy who might get defeated only to be back unchanged in the next episode, when kids see the broken pumpkin at the end of our video—and the broom sweeping up the bits—they know that the pumpkin is gone and won’t be coming back. And a heavy dose of humor is the “spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down,” making a big, dramatic symbol into something entertaining and graspable.

Helping kids, helping grownups

One secret that we’ve learned over the course of 40 years at Madison Children’s Museum is that adults also benefit tremendously from the healing power of play. The light-hearted play and symbolic language that help children recover from trauma and build resiliency also helps grown-ups as we deal with our own stress, trauma, and anxiety. Will everything magically get better when the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2021? Of course not. Does seeing a big, symbolic pumpkin explode into tiny bits of rind and seed help us celebrate getting through the past twelve months and help us face the next challenge with a smile? Absolutely.
These are a lot of words to explain why a children’s museum painted 2020 on a big pumpkin and threw it off of our roof. For many kids and grownups, this video might just be a bit of light entertainment with a satisfying mess at the end. But for others, it may be one component in the community effort to help heal from the stress and trauma we’ve experienced during the past year.

Wishing you joy, laughter, and healing play,
Madison Children’s Museum