And yes, it's actually true.

0 of 13 pumpkins found Door 1 Deutsch

Tuesday, 3 November 2026 Advent 1

Advent calendar

24 doors, 24 facts you can tell at the table on Christmas Eve. A new one opens every morning at midnight.

🎃 The golden pumpkin! Here is your secret Halloween fact:

The first jack-o’-lanterns were turnips. In Ireland and other Celtic regions in the 19th and early 20th centuries, people carved faces into turnips, sometimes potatoes or beets, and put a candle inside. It was meant to keep away the restless spirit “Stingy Jack”, who was barred from both heaven and hell. The National Museum of Ireland in County Mayo still keeps a plaster cast of a carved turnip from Donegal with “a pinched angry face”.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine