Jennifer Garner Tried Out The Viral Pumpkin-Carving Hack & Documented The Whole Thing

Jennifer Garner is at an interesting stage of parenting. Her three kids, 16-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Seraphina, and 10-year-old Samuel, are getting older, which means they might not be quite as invested in doing all of that fun holiday prep with their mom. But does that stop Garner from fully enjoying the spooky season? Absolutely not. She even tried out a pumpkin-carving hack that’s gone viral on social media to make her Jack-o-Lantern creations that much easier.

On Monday, Garner shared a video on Instagram of her attempt at using a hand mixer to carve a pumpkin, a hack that was first shared by Babs, “the internet mom / grandma you didn’t know you needed,” on Instagram and TikTok. The 13 Going On 30 actress went outside to grab a pumpkin looking about as excited as a grown woman can be with a gourd and set about using a hand mixer to hollow it out.

“Seeds: easy to remove,” she noted, even though her baseball cap did fall off in the process, “Easy to clean.” Finally Garner offered an official thumbs-up for the hack, “It’s a win!” She captioned the video, “Spoiler alert: the hand mixer hack works!”

Garner isn’t just mastering the art of pumpkin carving like a pro, she’s also a pro at letting their kids live their lives without the “burden” of having to be her best friend. “I have a lot of friends. I don't need my kids to try to be my friends. They need to focus on themselves,” she told Romper in 2021. “My kids are totally my buddies and I love a date with just one of them more than just about anything. I raised my own travel buddies who like to go look into old churches and like to find the bookstore and like to just get lost in having to adventure and eat. I just enjoy them so, so much, but I don't want them to have the burden of having to be my best friend.”

If that means carving a pumpkin on her own or, as she did recently, dressing up in a few Halloween costumes with her dog and making a video in the kitchen, so be it. She knows how to have a little fun all on her own. Which will come in handy in the coming years for sure.