It’s Time to Carve the Jack-O-Lantern

The practice of carving faces into a pumpkin is common in many parts of the world but the origins have been lost to history. The first recorded reference in the United States was in 1866 and has been a big part of Halloween since.

For years this has been one of my favorite parts of Halloween. Picking out a great pumpkin and putting a killer carving on to make the best Jack-O-Lantern. One year I did a headless horseman, it took me about four hours and my fingers were sore as hell but it did look good. I thought it looked better after the pumpkin dried out a little.

This is something we always did as a family. We would have cookies and apple cider and bake up the seeds in the oven with a little salt. Then we would put our pumpkins out front and light them each night before Halloween.

There is plenty of time to get your pumpkins and have a family night with treats and carving. I would go pick out some nice pumpkins and grab a couple of those books with tools and face templates in them. They work pretty well and have some easy ones for the young kids.