Happy Fall! It has arrived.
Yesterday was the first official day of autumn. I celebrated by pulling out my fall wreath for the front door and putting the summer one away.
I am seeing all the talk of fall everywhere this week – lots of “fall” themed podcast episodes are popping up on my feed, fall images everywhere, pumpkin recipes floating around, people coming out with “fall fun lists” and starting to visit the corn mazes and picking apples.
I love fall. I love the whole season from now until after Christmas. The holidays are just FUN to me. I also love decorating my house for them all. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! I also really don’t mind the shorter, darker days- I love lighting candles or turning the fireplace on and putting my slipper socks on. Haha! I know I might be in the minority on that one though.
We decorate quite a bit for Halloween, both inside and outside. Generally we (we= me and the boys- Ivan never lifts a finger to decorate anything. Party pooper.) pick a weekend evening and will pull out all the boxes and light some fall scented candles and start going to town!
We have lots of little pumpkin/ skeleton/ witch light up figurines that you can put those battery operated tea light candles in which I swap in on our built-in bookshelves surrounding the fireplace. I also have a couple of larger decorative pumpkins that can be lit up, and in the past I have hung orange twinkle lights (inside) in a few places.
The boys love turning all the lights off and seeing the orange glow everywhere once we are done. It’s a really fun tradition! We have it penciled in for this upcoming Saturday night.
I have never written out a “Fall Family Fun To- Do List” like I see many other bloggers do. We have some season staples that we like to do but I’ve never taken the time to really brainstorm any new ideas. Maybe I will, I don’t know.
Some things we typically do (off the top of my head):
-make homemade apple pie. We may or may not go “apple picking” (sometimes we “pick” them from the grocery store bin, LOL!), but we always make a pie.
-the decorating stuff (see above)
-a farm day/ pumpkin patch trip
-a corn maze (last year was the first time we did a bigger one- SO FUN!)
-rake huge piles of leaves in the yard for the boys to jump and dive in on a perfect, crisp, fall day. I always take a bunch of photos and videos. It always feels very much like “the perfect childhood memory” or something and I get all happy and emotional watching them laugh and roll in the leaves.
-make chili. Always on Halloween night, but sometimes even before then I make a batch.
-Go for a hike/ nature walk somewhere to enjoy the fall weather and leaves
-We are hit or miss on the pumpkin carving. We usually do it, but several years we have literally been carving them at 3 pm on Halloween to squeeze it in.
-We normally make Halloween themed cupcakes on or near Halloween and decorate them together with fun sprinkles.
-Hours of fall yard clean up, raking, cutting back plants, putting away lawn furniture, etc. (just kidding- this one doesn’t belong on the family fun list. It’s just a necessary evil of home ownership 😀.)
Stay tuned next weekend! I’m sure I’ll share some pics once we get our decorations up.
What are your favorite fall traditions?? Leave a comment and I’ll add them to my list!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for quick delivery yesterday of some chemicals for the hot tub that I needed. We got a starter kit when the hot tub was delivered, but I needed more of one chemical in particular and waited a bit too long to place the order. Fortunately, it shipped and arrived in less than 2 days! Perfect timing before I ran out. I’m grateful for that.
GRATEFUL KAE 
That is fun that you go all out and decorate for Halloween! I do not own a single fall/Halloween decoration! That is something I'll have to put more effort into when Pablo is older. Right now, the only season I decorate for is Christmas. I did try to buy a fall wreath when I was at Target last week but I didn't like any of the ones they had. I will have to keep looking as it would be nice to have a seasonal wreath on our door. We don't have many fall traditions yet. I think those will come with our kids are older? One thing we have done every year for probably 4-5 years is a pumpkin carving party with some of Phil's college friends. I have hosted most of the time, except last year someone else did because I was traveling. But unless we have mild fall weather around Halloween, we won't be able to do that as we'd have to do it outdoors. Typically, I would make chili and some sort of fall dessert but I don't see that happening this year since we'd have to be outside and we don't have a patio table yet… But hopefully next year we can resume this gathering as it's really fun.
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oh I love fall! something I miss from the US a lot. I agree fall signals end of the year is closing and so many holidays in between. We like to go apple picking, pumpkin carving, treat and trick, a lot of baking goodies, and celebration with friends. i soooooo miss them all.
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Oh we are such big fans of autumn / Halloween in this household!! We have already done a few fall things here – noticing the leaves changing (much more subtle here than in the US sadly – we go from green to yellow and brown and that’s pretty much it); picking blackberries on the lane; picking apples from our own trees. We made homemade apple cider last weekend, which was a fun treat that I think will become a tradition. An apple pie will be coming soon I’m sure! I grew my own (small pie) pumpkins this year and a few of them are already inside, looking festive. They don’t have big commercial pumpkin patches here or apple orchards in our part of Ireland, and I was just telling the girls about our annual trips to the Elegant Farmer as a kid. I miss those days! 😢The girls love Halloween season so much. In fact our rule is we don’t do Halloween stuff until Oct 1, otherwise they would want to do it all year. We don’t decorate outside (no one would see it) but we do inside and also have tons of kids books that we only break out at this time of year, as well as the Barney Halloween dvd (best Barney ever, just saying, normally I’m not a fan but I might keep watching that one even after the kids are done 😂). L wants to make her play house into a haunted house this year and to invite her friends to a Halloween party (sound familiar to anyone? 😂). We will still make the haunted house but I had to break it to her that we wouldn’t be having any indoor parties this year, sadly. Hopefully next year! The girls have already picked out their Halloween costumes, months ago. I think because so many Halloween activities will be cancelled so I may give them their costumes early and just let them wear them around the house when they want.Did you know Halloween originated in Ireland? Of course it did, seeing that Jack O’Lantern was involved :-). Of course in Ireland the original Jack o lantern was carved from a turnip since pumpkins are an American fruit. There is a huge Irish folklore surrounding Halloween, much of it very different than in the US. Traditionally winter starts in Ireland on November 1st, so the 31st of October was seen as a real transition period, the end of the harvest season and a time when the spirits of the otherworlds lurked very close to the visible world. There are some different traditions and legends surrounding that time of year. Irish kids go trick or treating nowadays but it’s not quite as big of a thing as in the states. We only have a few neighbors so it doesn’t take long to hit up all the households!
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Yum on the apple cider! We've never tried that. You'll have to tell me how you made it. The boys are more of "hot chocolate" fans though compared to cider, but I like apple cider a lot. I heard a lot about your Halloween traditions from whenever it was that Mom and Dad were there for it. Sounds like a ton of fun!! Too bad there aren't the pumpkin patch places over there though! The kids would LOVE that at their ages. 🙂 I've never really told the boys much about our old haunted houses. I'm not sure I see them doing that, but maybe! Gosh that was soooooo fun though. Our basement set up was so perfect for it, too. Good times. 🙂 And I did not know that about Halloween and Ireland! I think I just always have loved the whole season and the traditions. Between my b-day parties in October, our haunted houses and of course trick or treating and all of that, it was just the best. I really love the changing season too, and I still really like reading Halloween books with the kids! We still get their kiddie ones out and read them just for fun.
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