What would a “haunted” home be without a spooky jack-o’-lantern lighting the way for trick-or-treaters on Halloween night? Come October, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes can be seen sporting traditional spooky faces. And not only faces – many clever carvers whittle designs of all kinds into the vegetable’s skin, from cartoon characters to landscapes to political candidates.

But how did the tradition of carving pumpkins start in the first place? Creating lanterns from vegetables was a practice in Britain and Ireland long before pumpkins became a Halloween emblem, but the legend of the jack-o’-lantern has its roots both in Irish folklore and a strange, natural occurrence.

The term “jack-o’-lantern” was once used to describe the ghostly lights that would sometimes appear over bogs at nightfall. Some scientists theorize that the phenomenon is caused by the oxidation of gases created by decaying plants, but local folk tales offer many more fanciful explanations. One version tells the story of Jack, a lazy drunkard who managed to trap the devil in a tree, refusing to let him go until he’d extracted a promise from him never to claim Jack’s soul.

After he died, Jack found he wasn’t welcome in heaven. But he wanted to go somewhere, so he appealed to the devil. Unsympathetic, the devil also turned him away – but not before giving Jack an eternally burning flame from hell’s own fires to light his way. Jack ensconced the flame in a makeshift lantern carved from a turnip, and from that night on he became known as “Jack of the Lantern” – or, “Jack-o’-lantern.” Legend has it that his lonely soul has traveled the world ever since, looking for a place to rest, and that his light is the one seen haunting the bogs at night.

Eventually, jack-o’-lanterns came to be associated with harvest time, and Irish children began carving faces into turnips and potatoes, using them to decorate their homes on All Hallow’s Eve. The custom accompanied Irish immigrants to America, but as pumpkins were both easier to carve and more readily available in the United States, they eventually replaced the traditional turnip.

Whether you carve it yourself or buy one pre-made, enjoy your Halloween pumpkin!

Labor Day was first officially celebrated in 1894 to recognize the contributions of laborers in various trades. It has its origins in 1872, when a nineteen-year-old shop apprentice named Peter McGuire joined 100,000 other New York City workers on strike to demand a decrease in the workday. McGuire, the son of Irish immigrants, was only eleven when he first entered the workforce. At this time it was common for men, women and children to work ten- or twelve-hour days, stopping only long enough to eat. Working conditions were poor, but the employees didn’t dare take time off even for illness – thousands of people were waiting to take their places, and skipping work meant getting fired.

Convinced that an organized labor movement was important to the future of workers’ rights, McGuire began traveling throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States, speaking to laborers about unionizing and lobbying the city government for jobs and relief money. In 1881, he founded a national union of carpenters, and eventually became General Secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The idea of organizing workers by trade spread, and factory workers, dockworkers and toolmakers began calling for an eight-hour workday, job security and a future in their respective trades. Working with laborers in various cities, Peter McGuire planned a holiday for workers on the first Monday in September, and the first parade to celebrate the laboring class was held in New York City on September 5, 1882.

In the late 1880s, labor organizations began lobbying various state legislatures for recognition of Labor Day as an official state holiday. In 1887, Oregon, Colorado, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey became the first states to recognize Labor Day as a holiday. Congress voted to make it an official federal holiday in 1894.

Today, Labor Day is observed in the United States, Canada and other industrialized nations. For many Americans, summer unofficially ends with Labor Day: politicians hold rallies, communities host parades, and children say goodbye to summer vacation and get ready to begin a new school year. You may want to take advantage of this last long weekend (until Thanksgiving) with a final barbecue, picnic, or trip to the beach!

If you’re not looking forward to “springing forward” with daylight savings time, there’s a way you can make getting up an hour earlier a little easier. Just go to bed 15 minutes earlier and get up 15 minutes earlier every day from Wednesday night through Sunday morning. That way, when Sunday night rolls around, you won’t dread turning the clock ahead because your body will have already adjusted.
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