Ive managed the effort to do around 5 pumpkin carves in my life. I never, not once, thought about this.

Thanks, but damn.

Alternative idea, cut the hole in the side and use the stem as a nose.

note that this will speed up rotting on the bottom if it is exposed to water

War and peas. Their style isn't as sardonically macabre, but I expect they would take that as a complement.

If it’s the comic I’m thinking of it was supremely fucked up.

I'd actually argue that if you're going to decorate, pumpkins and trees are some of the more responsible decorations

They're renewable, easily biodegradable, and (especially if you grow your own pumpkins in a suitable climate) have a pretty minimal if not helpful environmental impact

Grow pumpkins, you'll understand why they thought it wasn't such a bad idea. Also don't throw away the flesh, use it.

Humand don't normally eat the rind of a pumpkin. Its the ooey gooey guts everyone is after. And the seeds. Besides, pie pumpkins are generally smaller and have more guts than the ones desired for lanterns.

People are irrational animals, and having dumb little traditions like that is the least malign way of expressing that irrationality.

They turn into fertilizer fairly well.

After Halloween, kick them into the nearest garden bed and they'll rot into the ground.

It kind of is. Like, I imagine back in the day before we had refrigeration and other methods like canning it was something to do with excess turnips and then eventually pumpkins, but it is weird.

The one that really bothers me, though, are the mini pumpkins and gourds. Folks might have one, maybe two, jack-o'-lanterns, but they'll waste dozens of those mini gourds on decoration. Those things are delicious! And if you're buying them every year, not carving them, they always look basically the same... That's a pretty good use for something like plastic or glass, and save the food for, like, food. The pumpkins I get people want to do something creative and different with each year, but the mini gourds? They just sit there like lumps!

Møøse eat them.

not all pumpkins can be food. most are actually poisonous to humans.

Carving pumpkins and pie pumpkins are different varieties of pumpkin; you don't really want to eat a jack-o'-lantern

That's because you're forgetting about the earlier parts of the tradition in both cases.

The Christmas one used to be about bringing a bit of green into the house, originally a pagan custom, it was considered good luck because green plants were associated with spring and spruce was one of the few plants in that was green all year round. That ended up getting merged with the Christian Christmas and the giving of gifts symbolises the wise men giving gifts, originally it was symbolic the value of the gift was basically zero but then they invented the PlayStation.

Halloween is also a pagan myth, coupled with the practicality of October being the time of year that you tend to have an awful lot of pumpkin husks lying around. You're supposed to eat the pumpkin although I'm aware a lot of people don't these days, because people don't really see pumpkins as food anymore.

I don't get it? You eat the inside, not the shell