• rafoix@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Turning food into an inedible decoration left outside to rot seems like a stupid tradition.

    Same with chopping down trees to put presents under them.

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      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

      • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        we are using the same artificial trees we’ve been using for the last, uh we got the last big one about 15 years ago and the last tabletop one 10 years ago. got a big bag in the garage for each tree to take it apart and not have to put all the decorations on each year (two decades of running a christmas tree festival takes all the magic out of decorating)

        • Soggy@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          I’d rather grow and cut down fifty trees than have one plastic tree, personally. Forever trash is a big deal for me.

    • Destide@feddit.uk
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      6 days ago

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

    • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      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.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      They turn into fertilizer fairly well.

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

    • Rooty@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

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

        • OZFive@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          WE APOLOGISE AGAIN FOR THE FAULT IN THE SUBTITLES. THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR SACKING THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST BEEN SACKED, HAVE BEEN SACKED.

        • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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          5 days ago

          I’ll enjoy my moose at a distance or juuuust a little pink on the inside. There is no inbetween.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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      6 days ago

      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!

      • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        I’d say that a cultivated gourd is a way more responsible decoration than anything made of plastic. Think of it less as a waste of food, and more as making decorations out of materials that are renewable and biodegradable

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      5 days ago

      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.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

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

      • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        How do I tell the difference when at the grocery store? I was thinking of buying one to eat it — I now realize I might have been about to make a mistake.