It's Halloween time again. Homes, neighborhoods and businesses are all decorated for the beautiful fall season. Our neighborhood has an entrance sign that we decorate each year with a few pumpkins up on the sign ledge.
On Saturday, our five new pumpkins decorated with pretty fall ribbons were placed at our entrance sign. Unfortunately, by Tuesday morning, three of the five pumpkins had been stolen. For some reason, stealing pumpkins during the Halloween season seems to be "acceptable." Many seem to think of this act as a "harmless prank" and funny. Sometimes the thief is simply stealing the pumpkin for the thrill of smashing it only a few feet away. In this case our pumpkins are just gone.
Parents, please explain to your children and teens that taking a pumpkin that does not belong to you is stealing. It is wrong. It is not a funny prank. The pumpkin thief should stop and think about the owner of that pumpkin. It could belong to a little child that just carved it with his dad. It could have been from a special family outing to a pumpkin patch. It could have been purchased by a family with limited income with no means to replace it. It could have been purchased out of a neighborhood fund like ours.
There is nothing funny about taking an item that doesn't belong to you. It is stealing. Smashing a pumpkin that does not belong to you is vandalism. Our neighborhood only wanted to make our entrance festive for the fall season. It's too bad that the pumpkin thief could not respect that.
