Damaris Phillips Says The New Season Of Food Network’s ‘Outrageous Pumpkins’ Is Must-See TV

When

Outrageous Pumpkins

returns to Food Network for its fifth season, they are shaking things up a bit, as

host Damaris Phillips

shared with

Southern Living

.

“People who’ve watched in the past are going to see familiar faces because this year is an all-star season,” she said. Every carver competing in this season will have either won or made it near the end of seasons’ past. “ You’re kinda getting the best of the best that we’ve seen in the first four seasons all concentrated into one season.”

She continued, “We don’t want to make it too easy on them so we paired them up in teams. WHAT? Yeah. They didn’t get to choose their partners either because it’s a pretty tight-knit group of people. The carvers know each other.”

So since the carvers are not choosing their partners themselves, they don’t get the luxury of choosing someone they already know how they work or what their style is, per say.

And while that could yield some drama, Phillips said, “You get to see some different personalities and very different carving styles and how they integrate them into one carve. You get two artists and how those two artistic styles mesh to create something better than the sum of its parts. Many, many times what you would see is them carving and making each other better. It was so wholesome. I’m telling you. It makes me feel so warm.”

The

Louisville

native isn’t just the host of the show, she’s a real fan. She plans to host watch parties with her friends and family each week, all with a different variation of a

pumpkin

theme.

“We’re hosting a pumpkin carving party. We’re doing those little sweater pumpkins, where you take old sweaters and you turn them into pumpkins. We’re doing puffy paint, pumpkin sweatshirts. So it’s all pumpkin, all day. We’re doing like the decoupage pumpkins too where you get those dollar pumpkins and you take either paper or I use comic books and you decoupage the outside of it so it looks like it’s a superhero comic book.”

She plans to use the pumpkins that she and her friends make during their watch parties for her own Thanksgiving celebration. “The goal is that then you’ll have it so when you go to host your Thanksgiving you have all these cute little pumpkins that can be sprinkled through your table.”

If you follow the chef and TV host on social media, then you know that theme parties are her love language and nobody loves a theme party more than she does.

“I just love adults playing. I love when adults find a reason to have fun. And there is no reason for it other than being a little kid again and playing. And there’s so few chances. We all work so hard, we all think we’re doing what we’re supposed to do to be adults and we forget that when you’re a kid, your whole life was about having fun. And that was the goal. How do I play longer? And so trying to bring that into my adulthood.”

As for anyone who hasn’t yet joined the

Outrageous Pumpkins

fanbase, Phillips says it’s really the perfect show to watch as a family this season.

“The carvers are good people. It’s a competition. They all want to win.  Fifty thousand dollars is on the line.  But I think when you’re watching, what people can expect to see is the goodness of humanity, honestly. Not to be too big with it, but it really, they’re good people and they want each other to succeed and they’re having fun and they’re doing this really whacky, pretty zany thing and they’re sharing it with all of us.”

Outrageous Pumpkins

airs on Food Network on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. EST beginning September 29.