P is for Pumpkin

Today we are reading
The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons

Hopefully we'll carve a Jack O' Latern after dad's home from work. I've been thinking of a way to incorporate a moral or virtue into doing this and finally it hit me :) I've read to the family the story of Stingy Jack. (below) I'll read it again tonight as we carve our Jack O'Latern and we'll remember to fight against being stingy! Have a Blessed Hallowtide!

There once was an old drunken trickster named Jack, a man known so much for his miserly ways that he was known as "Stingy Jack," He loved making mischief on everyone -- even his own family, even the Devil himself! One day, he tricked Satan into climbing up an apple tree -- but then carved Crosses on the trunk so the Devil couldn't get back down. He bargained with the Evil One, saying he would remove the Crosses only if the Devil would promise not to take his soul to Hell; to this, the Devil agreed.

After Jack died, after many years filled with vice, he went up to the Pearly Gates -- but was told by St. Peter that he was too miserable a creature to see the Face of Almighty God. But when he went to the Gates of Hell, he was reminded that he couldn't enter there, either! So, he was doomed to spend his eternity roaming the earth. The only good thing that happened to him was that the Devil threw him an ember from the burning pits to light his way, an ember he carried inside a hollowed-out, carved turnip.