As we age, we often let many of the traditions we held so dearly, as children, fade from memory. Whether we feel we age out of doing them or if we simply let them fade by the wayside as new things come into our lives. But, there are times in which those traditions come rushing back with a smell on the breeze, a sight that allows us to reach back in time, or a sound that cracks the walls we have build up around us. Those times are holidays. For me, there are traditions that I have carried through my childhood and continue to this very day and my favorite one is carving pumpkins for Halloween.
Join me today as I share some of my memories of those times and how I still keep them alive today. Stick around till the end and I will share with you my favorite places to find the best pumpkins for your spooky carving season. Let’s get into Halloween Traditions: More Than Just a Jack O’Lantern.
- The first jack o’lantern
- Scouting for pumpkins
- Keeping it simple
- Building traditions together
- Country punkins’
- Carving out your traditions
The first jack o’lantern
No one is completely sure when the first jack o’lantern was carved, stories say that it originated in Ireland with the telling of Stingy Jack. A man so treacherous that God would not let him into heaven and the Devil chose to keep him alive because of his tricks. The Devil’s punishment was for him to wander the world with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack placed that coal into a lantern carved from a turnip. It is said that the first jack o’lanterns in Ireland were also carved from turnips to keep Stingy Jack away on the night of Samhain.
As the Irish moved to America, they brought that story with them and since pumpkins were abundant in the new world, the tradition soon took on a new guise. The purpose of the jack o’lantern is to keep bad spirits at bay on this night when the veil between the spirit world and ours is at its thinnest. This was the story I was told as a kid.
Scouting for pumpkins
As I think back, my first time would have been in elementary school. I have vague memories of being in a classroom with my classmates and teachers, carving pumpkins. I also have very strong memories of sitting in the living room of our old house, with my sister, sitting on scattered newspaper to catch all the pumpkin “guts” as we carved our pumpkins. But the memories that seem to stand out the most are when my Cub Scout troop would go gather pumpkins to carve. Each of us would get a pumpkin and then we would assemble to start our work of creating our ghoulish decorations.
The room we gathered in was covered in newspapers and we had small hand saws and dull knives to carve the holes, as well as a spoon for disemboweling our festive gourds. Pumpkin guts would end up everywhere, on the floor, tables and barely on the newspaper. At some point we all ended up throwing those seeds at one another.
Keeping it simple
I carried a lot of my traditions with me when I went away to college. Halloween was one of them. Halloween was the time I loved decorating. From garish paper decorations, festive lights, to carving pumpkins, I kept as many as I could. The season would be an event, we would go to a haunted house, watch scary movies, and even do the Halloween dance in costume. My friends and I would go to the local grocery store for our pumpkin needs and once carved, it would grace the window sill of my dorm room. students that lived across the way from me would ask about my pumpkins when they saw me. I loved it.
I have been fortunate to always seem to have people in my life who love decorating for Halloween as much as I do, so carving pumpkins was never an issue. When I was living alone, I would pick out a few to carve to grace the doorsteps. Each year I would try to go for some kind of theme for their faces. I have used the stencils in the past but my favorite way of carving is to stick to the old ways I learned, simply carving faces.
One of my favorite years was when my friend Tammy, her husband Brian, and I carved pumpkins at their place. We had been fans of a game called World of Warcraft and in homage to the game, we created pumpkins to match the faces of their Halloween in-game event. It was a fun way to bring together our love of gaming with our love of Halloween.
Building traditions together
Flash forward to five years ago when I met Karl. I was excited to find out that he also loved decorating and carving pumpkins. Our first Halloween together, I decided it was time to introduce him to some of the best places in the area to get pumpkins, more to come on that later. I am not sure that he thought it would have been as big of an event as it turned out to be. One of the places I took him goes all out, they have pumpkins of various sizes, corn stalks, homemade jams and jellies, decorations, and even a corn maze. He had a great time experiencing my favorite place.
It was really awesome to be able to share one of my favorite places in the Cleveland area to select pumpkins for my Halloween activities, as well as being able to carve them with him. Five years into dating and we still head out there, select orr pumpkins and carve them. Each year, our decorations grow a little more and we add something new to the tradition. The one that remains is our jack-o-lanterns.
Country punkins’
First and foremost, you should always buy your pumpkins locally. Besides getting the freshest and best options for you, you are also supporting someone who is out there breaking their backs to support their families. And there is just something about buying pumpkins from someone who actually has a pumpkin patch to grow them. Sure, I may be a tad biased because Karl and I both love U-Pick places for produce, but there is something about thousands of pumpkins grown locally and on display that just makes this time of year feel all the more festive. Maybe its the kid in me remembering Linus sitting in his pumpkin patch waiting on the Great Pumpkin and hoping that just once that I, too, may witness him.
That being said, my all time favorite place to get pumpkins is at Mulberry Corners Farm in Chesterland, Ohio. I mean, what isnt to love besides the row and row of pumpkins in various sizes? There are decorative gourds, hay bales, scarecrows, and various other Halloween decorations for your spooky holiday needs. Bringing the kids? No worries, there is a corn maze, on-site, that is sure to keep them occupied while you pick out the best pumpkin to carve. Dont forget to check out their petting zoo, they have the most cute and well-behaved goats I have ever seen.
As if the petting zoo, corn maze, plethora of photo ops, and multitude of pumpkins to choose from, you can also get home made james, jellies, and baked good. This is my most favorite Halloween stop of the entire season and one I super excitedly recommend to anyone who is looking for a place to pick out their punkins’. Dont believe me? Check out the photos below.
Carving out your traditions
Holiday traditions are cornerstones of families. They may change through the years but they are often the glue that can hold a holiday together. While many of my traditions have been left to the ages, I am both excited and thankful to have someone in my life to build and continue old ones with. It is also amazing to have someone that you can share your love of decorating for the holidays with, it just adds an extra layer of awesomeness.
What about you, what traditions do you still continue to do every holiday? Have you adopted any new ones or maybe you have trimmed down some of the ones you used to do. Are there places in the area you love to go pick pumpkins? What Halloween traditions do you and your family participate in each year? Let me know in the comments below. I hope each and everyone of you have a spooky Halloween holiday and thanks to each and everyone of you for making GayintheCLE what it is.
Gay in the CLE 