Nice to learn more about the holiday from someone who celebrates it! Good luck with the decorating!

I was my mother's chief cake-decorator from about age 5. When my hands were too little to actually hold the frosting tube, she'd have me draw on the frosting base with a toothpick, then she'd trace it. As I got older, I just did all the cak decorating myself. The funniest thing was, for my high-school graduation, she wanted my cake to be a surprise, so she decorated it entirely on her own. (I love my mom, but she had zero artistic talent. Musical? Yes, in abundance. Writing talent? Sure? Artistic = NONE whatsoever.) So when she presented me with my graduation cake, she asked "Can you tell what it is?" I stared and stared and finally guessed "A dove?" And she was completely crestfallen, but a laughing a little when she said "No! That's YOU! That's you in your cap and gown, and holding an artist's pallete!"

So if your first skull comes out looking not like you expected, you can dedicate it to my mom, Marilyn, who died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 1999.