Gourd knows we need cheering up!

With trick or treat cancelled this year, we ‘ve been making more of an effort to have fun with pumpkins.

31st October 2020

Happy Halloween!

With Trick or Treat cancelled this year, we’ve put more effort into pumpkin carving than ever before. We even had a company wide competition, the winner gets an extra day off next year so it was taken pretty seriously.

Below are a few of our favourites, which is yours?

Have you ever wondered why we carve pumpkins?

Halloween originated from an ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated from sunset on October 31st to sunset on November 1st, to remember and honour deceased relatives and friends. It was believed that the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest on this night and thus, it was considered the most magical night of the year.

Jack o’lanterns were originally carved from turnips, pears or gourds, originally filled with burning lumps of coal and later replaced by candles. They were set in windows and outside doorways, to welcome the spirits of loved ones and guide their way, and also to protect the living from evil and malevolent spirits.

When Europeans, especially those from Ireland, arrived in America, they came across indigenous pumpkins, which were much larger and easier to carve than turnips and so were substituted when making jack o’lanterns. By the late 1800s, pumpkin carving became so popular in American that they began to be transported across the world and carving any other fruit or vegetable became increasingly uncommon, to the point that pumpkins and Halloween go together like peas and carrots.

Pumpkin carving hasn’t escaped the attention of inventors with a penchant for the occult. Here are a few of our favourite pumpkin related patents (warning — some of them are really freaky:

US396252 — Jack A’ Lantern (G.A. Beidler) 1889 “…to provide a new article of manufacture or unique appearance which will form an attractive, desirable, and amusing toy for children, and supply a long-known want, and which may be used as a campaign-torch for celebrations, torch-light processions, political meetings, and other like occasions where an effective pyrotechnic display is desirable.”

US715379 — Jack-O’-Lantern (Andrew B. Herd) 1902 “The invention relates to the general class of transparencies, and particularily to decorative and grotesque illuminating devices or lanterns commonly called “jack-o’-lanterns;” and the object in view is to provide a simple and inexpensive device of this class which may be constructed of sheet material, such as cardboard or its equivalent, the same having means for giving access to the contained illuminating device and with means for protecting the light from drafts of air when the lantern is in motion, as in torch-light processions and the like.”

US699669 — Toy Jack’ O Lantern (John J. DTJ Ket) 1901 “…to provide a pleasing toy of the kind that is adapted to be used as a substitute for the pumpkin jack-o’-lantern commonly used on Halloween and that is light, durable, economical in construction, and readily lighted and conveniently handle; furthermore, in which the light openings are provided with translucent coverings readily applied, in colors as desired, whereby the flame is concealed and a glow-light is produced and the grotesque and fantastic effects are heightened.”

US2096507 — Forming Configurations on Natural Growth (Charles H. Draper) 1937 “By my novel method, the general shape or contour of a pumpkin or the like can be formed at the same time as the facial configuration, so that the pumpkin or other growth can be formed into the general contour of the head of a human or animal.”

US3822170 — Molded Decorative Accessories for Jack-O’-Lanterns (James J. Smolen) 1974 “…pertains to accessories for jack-o’-lantern type decorative devices formed from a pumpkin or the like wherein a variety of decorative facial features, such as eyes, nose, mouth and ears are formed of a soft, flexible molded plastics material or compound and are provided with apertures formed therein for passage of means for mounting such accessories to a pumpkin in order to form a decorative jack-o’-lantern.”

What did your Jack-o-lanterns look like? Send us some pictures via social media.