"Jack-O' Lantern"

Thank you parents for your contributions of $3.00 to help defray the cost of this week's craft project. Also a thank you to Novia, Irma, Holly, Lisa, and Stephanie for helping set up and supervise the painting.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU to mom's Nancy and Lisa for donating the snack and drinks for this meeting!
The girls enjoyed them.

This week's troop meeting~ PART ONE... Have you ever thought about a tradition you do and have no idea how it all came about, you just do it year after year, because, after all, it's what you do. Carving pumpkins on Halloween is one of those traditions. In this weeks troop meeting, we talked (in general terms) about the myth behind the popular "Jack-O' Lantern" and the tradition of carving pumpkins. (For the detailed myth CLICK HERE)


The general myth of the "Jack-O' Lantern" shared at our troop meeting:
The legend of Jack O' Lantern goes back to hundreds of years in the Irish history. The original Jack O' Lantern was not a pumpkin, but a miserable, old drunkard man nicknamed Stingy Jack who played tricks on people and lied to anyone he came in contact with, including family, friends, his mother and even the Devil himself. Myth has it that when Stingy Jack died, he wasn't allowed to enter heaven or the other place, so he roamed around on the earth without any place to rest. He roamed around as a ghost with his lit lantern... this is when he was then called Jack of the Lantern (shortened to Jack-O' Lantern). The Irish people kept the fable of Stingy Jack alive by hollowing out turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes and beets on All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) and making their own version of a Jack-O' Lantern with scary faces on them. They set a candle in their Jack-O' Lanterns and placed them on their front porch to ward off the evil spirits and keep the ghost of Stingy Jack away. These were the original Jack-O' Lanterns. Irish immigrants brought the Jack-O' Lantern carving tradition with them when they came to the United States, and soon switched over to pumpkin-carving when they discovered that pumpkins were growing in abundance and much easier to carve than turnips etc.

Instead of carving pumpkins at our troop meeting (for safety purposes), we decorated them with washable poster paint to look like Jack-O' Lanterns. The girls had a good time showing their creativity in giving their pumpkins color and personality.

Below are some pumpkin carving ideas

for crafting your own pumkins at home...

IT WOULD BE A GREAT FAMILY FUN NIGHT!

Click Here for stencils

Click Here for stencils and other "how to" ideas

Click Here for carving tips