Put Out a Teal Pumpkin This Halloween

Thomas Molnar, the esteemed political philosopher and historian once wrote, 'Tradition is one of those fundamental concepts which today is overused, with the result that its futurist opponents ignorantly despise it, while its faithful defenders often do not really understand it. The first believe that tradition is the opposite of change, the latter are unsure about the manner of distinguishing between tradition and the merely old; both tend to think of tradition as the bottom of the time-ocean, covered by layers upon heavy layers of time, hardly lit by anything but arbitrarily focusing memory.'

Image Courtesy: Food Allergy Reasearch and Education

Tradition changes to accommodate and therefor continuity and change can co-exist. Putting out a teal pumpkin for Halloween, according to me is exactly this. Putting out a pumpkin for Halloween is tradition. Going tricking and treating is tradition. The change in the last 2-3 years is putting out a teal colored one along with the regular pumpkin. What does it indicate? It indicates that kids with allergies can safely stop by for a non-food treat. 

Short History of the Teal Pumpkin

The teal pumpkin project was started by Becky Basalone and the support group for people with food allergies within her community. Both her sons had allergies as did other members of her family (including herself). What started within a community soon grew to the rest of the country. 

The Teal Pumpkin Project tweaked tradition to accommodate a more recent problem. As food allergies have increased, many kids who went trick or treating and received candy, could not enjoy all that  they got. In fact most had to be given away. As more people in the community get aware of such problems the number of people who put out a teal pumkin have increased. 

All change starts small. If this will decrease the offer of sweets too, it's a blessing in disguise, for then the high consumption of sugar during the holiday will also be cut down. 

So this year if you are putting out a pumpkin, why don't you put out a teal colored one too?