Chip Chick
There’s nothing that screams Halloween quite like pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns. The tradition of carving up a pumpkin and putting it on your porch actually originated in Ireland after people there started sharing the story of a man called Stingy Jack.
Stingy Jack got it in his head that he would be able to somehow deceive the devil in order to financially profit off that.
Needless to say, that didn’t work out well for him and after he passed away, he wasn’t allowed in heaven or hell.
So, his punishment was that he would be forever stuck wandering around our world.
In an effort to keep Stingy Jack away, the Irish cut the faces of demons into turnips and it was supposed to prevent Stingy Jack from getting too close to their homes.
After some Irish people arrived in America to a shortage of turnips, they picked up pumpkin carving instead.
Speaking of shortages, you might want to head down to your nearest patch since it looks like there’s a shortage of pumpkins sweeping the nation right now!
It’s not quite in every state, but overall, pumpkins this year didn’t do so well due to several factors, leaving California, Kansas, and North Carolina in especially short supply.
ABC7 News reports that a drought in California is what made it a very bad year for pumpkins there in particular, and as well as a scarcity of people willing to work in pumpkin patches or farms.
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