Holidays & Seasonal Episode 7 · October 28, 2026
Why Do We REALLY Celebrate Halloween?
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The big question
Why do we celebrate Halloween, and why do we dress up in costumes?
Why do we celebrate Halloween, and why do we dress up in costumes? And did you know the first jack-o'-lanterns were carved out of TURNIPS?
Pip the puffin follows Halloween from the Celtic festival of Samhain, with bonfires and disguises, to All Hallows' Eve, soul cakes and guising, turnip lanterns, and Irish families bringing Halloween to America, where pumpkins took over. Plus guising in Scotland today (no joke, no treat!), the Day of the Dead in Mexico, five words to know, a safe pumpkin-carving idea to try with a grown-up, and a quiz.
Words to know
Samhain
Say it: SOW-in
An old Celtic festival in Ireland and Scotland at the end of October. It marked the end of the harvest, with huge bonfires, and some people wore disguises.
Halloween costumes may have started at Samhain.
All Hallows’ Eve
Say it: all HAL-ohz EEV
The night before All Hallows’ Day (All Saints’ Day) on November 1st. Said fast, it became “Halloween”!
Hallow is an old word for a saint, a holy person.
guising
Say it: GUY-zing
Dressing up in a disguise and going door to door, then earning your treat with a song, a poem or a joke.
Kids in Scotland still go guising today.
jack-o’-lantern
Say it: JAK-oh-LAN-tern
A lantern with a carved face. The first ones were carved from turnips in Ireland and Scotland. In America, pumpkins took over.
Stingy Jack and his turnip lantern gave them their name.
tradition
Say it: truh-DISH-un
Something people do again and again, year after year.
Carving pumpkins is a Halloween tradition.
Bonus words: harvest, soul cake, a-souling, ofrenda, apple dooking
Quiz time!
Try it at home: Turnip or pumpkin?
⏱ 20 minutes
You need
- A grown-up
- A small pumpkin
- A turnip (or another root vegetable)
- A marker
- A spoon for scooping
- A battery tea light
Steps
- Draw a jack-o’-lantern face on your pumpkin with a marker.
- Your grown-up does ALL of the cutting.
- Scoop out the seeds with a spoon, then put a battery tea light inside instead of a candle.
- Now draw a face on a turnip too. Which one would you rather carve?
What’s going on? Turnips are small and really tough, while pumpkins are big and easy to scoop out. No wonder pumpkin lanterns took over in America!
⚠️ Only grown-ups use knives. Use a battery tea light, not a candle.
⭐ Guising challenge: before trick-or-treating, work out one joke together, Scottish style, and try it at the door if your grown-up says it’s okay.