Before we carved pumpkins, the Irish chiseled creepy faces onto turnips. Pumpkins with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. ... Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities
Symbolically, the pumpkin is often linked to rebirth and fertility, and they also symbolise harvests and crops. They fit the season in which Halloween falls every year. For those who go 'trick or treating', a luminous pumpkin on the stairs is the symbol that those who live there want a visit.
