It keeps resetting to pumpkins

It's totally the wrong time of the year for this recipe, but I was cleaning the extra bathroom this morning and found it (don't ask: it's a long but perfectly reasonable explanation and not icky in the slightest) and thought it was time I posted something new here.

Apologies to Terry Pratchett for that title, by the way. But his Witches Abroad is what I think of every time I'm leafing through recipes and see this one. This is one of those I can't help but think had to be the result of somebody's overabundance of pumpkin.

Even now, the name gives me the shivers, a little. It's probably a perfectly good food product, it's just that the name makes my mind go in all sorts of weird directions. But enough of that, here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Dip

(see? doesn't your mind go in all sorts of weird directions too? I told you so.)

3 oz cream cheese
1/4 c powdered sugar
1/2 c pumpkin
1/4 t cinnamon
1/8 t nutmeg
8 oz Cool Whip (tm)
Serve with gingerbread cookies.

And for those of you who actually need instructions rather than just ingredient lists, here's my take on what you should actually be doing with the above items. I'd say that the recipe card I have is sparse on directions, but since there's no directions other than the "serve with," that would be an understatement.

Soften cream cheese to beatable stage. Beat with powdered sugar. The pumpkin? That's puree: the canned stuff if that's the way you roll, the the home-made stuff if you roll my way. If you're using the canned, don't go for the pumpkin pie filling: that has a bunch of extras in it that will just mess up this recipe. You want the straight canned puree. Mix in the pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Oh, by the way, I usually double the given amount of cinnamon in any recipe mainly because I like cinnamon, but if your cinnamon is as old as I suspect your cinnamon is, you're going to want to do that as well just to be able to taste it at all. Don't double the nutmeg if you're doing what you should be doing which is grating it fresh--a little fresh nutmeg goes a LONG way. But if you're using the old can of nutmeg that's been in your spice cupboard for a year or more, you might be able to up that quantity too. (And then you have to promise me you'll go throw out that stupid can and go buy some nutmegs and a nutmeg grater or grinder and go forth and sin no more.)

Fold in a bit of the Cool Whip just to lighten the weight of the pumpkin/cream cheese mixture and then fold in the rest. And if you're feeling particularly splendid, you may just want to give in and make this with real whipped cream. And homemade gingersnaps. And maybe some Christmas mix (i.e. rum/brandy).