'Everyone’s grandmother' Barbara heralds the Halloween season with impressive pumpkin carving hack

Everyone loves it when the elder people take to social media to put their hidden skills and wisdom on display. Barbara 'Babs' Costello, who is also lovingly called "everyone's grandmother," is a 74-year-old granny who is one of the many rising influencers on social media who are from the generation of boomers. Since the spooky season of Halloween has arrived and autumn is bringing us a surplus of giant pumpkins, the grandma is going viral again on the internet for an impressive pumpkin carving hack. 

Costello, who is known for her hacks, tips and cooking videos on her social sites, had posted a pumpkin carving hack for Halloween in 2022. Babs' viral video on her Instagram page called @brunchwithbabs, has resurfaced again as people scour the internet to make their Halloween celebrations special and memorable. In her video titled "The Do's and Don'ts of Pumpkin Carving," the "internet mom/grandma you didn’t know you needed" (as per her Instagram bio) starts by showing her viewers how to cut a hole at the bottom of your pumpkin and not at the top to prep it for your Halloween decoration.

Costello instructs her viewers to hold the pumpkin and stabilize it by putting it on their laps and then bring out a hand mixer to clean out the insides of the veggies in half time. "Get all those strings cleaned up," she said while turning on her hand mixer to gather the pumpkin's mushy seeds. "Your mixer did all the hard work of loosening all those strings." Costello shows how to spoon out the seeds and the sticky strings. 

The grandma advises Halloween enthusiasts to use a red dry-erase marker and sketch out the face of their jack-o-lantern or simply use a cookie cutter and wooden mallet to cut out the designs. Adding some Vaseline on the edges of the pumpkin cut will also keep the vegetable looking fresh for a long time. With over 45 million views and counting, this is one of the most viral hacks uploaded by Babs. "Don't let all your work go to waste, those kids want to enjoy your pumpkins!" she says with a smile in her video.

"Sprinkle some cinnamon on the inside top of your pumpkin for a festive pumpkin spice smell when a candle is lit inside the pumpkin," she adds at the end of her video's caption. The creator of the massive hit video has not only limited herself to social media boundaries. Costello has even released her own cookbook in April 2022 called "Celebrate with Babs: Holiday, Recipes & Family Traditions." Her internet fame has even helped her to appear on "The Drew Barrymore Show."

However, the influencer grandma wasn't always enthusiastic about unlocking the potential of social media. "I had no desire to be on social media whatsoever. I didn't even have a Facebook account," Babs revealed to PEOPLE in an interview, sharing how her daughter Elizabeth persuaded her to start a TikTok. "After I said 'no' 150 times I finally decided, 'You know what? One and done, I'll make her happy and then it'll be over.' And I had no idea it was going to lead to this." 

What started in April 2020 with Babs sharing simple recipe videos, bloomed into something greater and earned her millions of fans and adopted grandchildren over the internet. "I'm kind of old," she joked. "So with age comes wisdom and experience. I was a preschool teacher for 25 years and working with children you have come across everything and anything. So, I think just my history, my experience and because I'm a mom and a grandma, I just learned a lot along the way."

"People were blown away. And you know what? It's all good stuff, it works. Who wants to scrape slimy string out of a pumpkin with your hands when you could loosen everything with a hand mixer?" she addressed the viral pumpkin hack video as well. "There are so many comments where people tell me 'You remind me of my mom' or 'You remind me of my grandma.' For whatever reason, I've struck a chord somewhere and it wasn't something you could ever plan. It happened organically," she added. " Costello remains grateful for all the opportunities her social media career has brought her in her 70s.