What comes to your mind when I say Halloween? Obviously it is trick or treat.  But did you know that one of America’s favorite kids friendly holiday has a haunted past. About 2000 years ago Nov 1 was originally called “Samhain” and marked the end of the harvest season for Celtic farmers. On the night before this festival, that is 31st October,  people celebrated “All Hallows Eve”. They believed that evil spirits roamed around on this night.  “All Hallows Eve”  has now changed to Halloween.

Not only the name, but the holiday has changed too. These days it is all about trick or treat, parades, bobbing for apples, pranks and pumpkin carving. Children dress up in costumes and go house to house, asking for candy handouts with the familiar cry of “trick or treat.” Pumpkins are carved and kept out side the house. They are very famously called – the jack-o’-lantern.

This is how the story of jack-o’-lantern goes. You might have heard a different version of it. But all stories have a cunning poor man that fooled an evil witch. Legend has it, in 18th-century Ireland,  Stingy Jack asked the witch to go to eat lunch with him. When the bill came, nobody wanted to pay up. Both expected each other to pay up. Since Jack was poor, he convinced the witch to change herself magically into money to pay the bill. When she turned herself into money, Jack locked her in a bottle to trap her. He became very famous for trapping the witch that troubled everyone. So people carve out Jack -o’-lantern out of pumpkin and keep it outside their homes to ward off evil.

Here is how you can carve a scary looking pumpkin.