Secondary required for pumpkin ale

I am planning on doing my 1st brew this weekend, nothin fancy, but I also want to try to get a pumpkin ale going to be ready by Thanksgiving. I bought a 2nd fermenter to use for Apfelwein, but as I am reading about pumpkin ale it occurs to me that I should maybe hold off on that so that I can use that fermenter as a secondary for the pumpkin to clear. Is that necessary, because my main priority (minus the initial run) would be to get the pumpkin brew done, due to a lot of friends and family are gonna be there. However, if it is not necessary to put the pumpkin into secondary, I'd like to toss 5 gals of apfelwein in there, because that could also be a nice fall treat.
Thanks.

Well, when introducing others to the world of homebrew, and specifically yours, i would not give them anything like the pumkin ale but that is just me.

Yeah, from my exp. you are going to want a secondary if nothing else than to put that into a fridge and let it cold condition which will help everything flocculate out and give you a clear clean beer.

Ha ha, true, maybe I have too much confidence in myself, but if it is mixed in with the usual drinking that goes on, I think I will score points more with the idea of homebrew, even if I miss on the actual taste. I appreciate the advice, I will hold off on the apfelwein, and use the 2nd bucket as a secondary instead. I will hopefully be able to get the pumpkin brew started by the end of september/early october, which I figure will give me some extra time to let everything sit and settle out (and maybe a taste or 2 to see how it turned out).

I have a pumpkin ale in the primary right now. Been there since Friday night. It has a ton of trub in it. I am definitely racking to a secondary to try to achieve extra clarity.

Haven't made a pumpkin ale, but every year as fall approaches, people make them & it seems like most of them end up needed to rack at least once to clarify. Just too much trub.

I think my game plan is this:

Brew up 1st run of beer. This will sit in primary for however long it takes (10 days, 14, whatever). Sometime during this time I will boil up the pumpkin, which will head to the other bucket. By the time the pumpkin finishes in primary, the 1st beer will be in the bottling bucket (and theoretically bottled). Rinse out and sanitize that fermenter, and use it as secondary for the pumpkin. The original pumpking fermenter gets rinsed, sanitized, and used for apfelwein. Everything flows perfectly, and happiness abounds. Somewhere along the way I hit the lotto and get elected president of the world.

Can i be The Internal Minister of Brewing in your cabinet when you become President of the world?

Absolutely. I will also require a secretary of boogying down. And someone to feed the unicorns, because since this is a fantasy I should probably bring back the unicorns.