Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

My shout-out to Charles Schultz - I love the Peanuts.

Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. Samhain is a celebration of the end of harvest season in Gaelic culture. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops.

The carving of the pumpkin, or Jack-O-Lantern, is a Halloween tradition. The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip.

Halloween did not become a holiday in the United States until the 19th century. The transatlantic migration of nearly two million Irish following the Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849) finally brought the holiday to the United States. Halloween is now the United States' second most popular holiday (after Christmas) for decorating; the sale of candy and costumes is also extremely common during the holiday, which is marketed to children and adults alike. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80% of American adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters and 93% of children planned to go trick-or-treating.

The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising (see below) on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.

How, you may wonder, do the Cruzes celebrate Halloween? Uh, like everyone else in the country. We gave out candy and took the kidos trick-or-treating. As you can see, Mason was Handy Manny and Siena is miss Daisy Duck.
Trick-or-treating was a lot of fun this year. The kids had the knack down of ringing the doorbells, shouting "trick-or-treat", selecting their candy, and hollering "thanks-bye-thanks-bye" upon leaving. For Luis and I, its a neat way to get to know some of our neighbors. Its not like we'd necessarily go knock on their doors to chat otherwise. And I think its kinda cool that there is such a neighborly-oriented tradition as this holiday.

Well, now its time for Luis and I to go vote. As I've said before, I'm not going to get political on this blog. Therefore, let me just say we're voting for the "O"...

And don't forget to vote in my poll up top!!