Fun fall festivities to get you in the seasonal spirit

The leaves are changing, the temperatures are dropping and the nights are coming quicker. You know what that means? Fall is here!

The season changing from summer to fall always makes for a bittersweet goodbye, with no more warm beach days or lounging by the pool everyday. Even though that summer fun is a year away, there is lots of fun to be had in the fall. 

One of my favorite parts about fall is all the baking. Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, apple crisp. If you aren’t a baker, no problem, because another one of my favorite parts of fall is the Pillsbury cookies –– you know the ones –– that you can get with little pumpkins on them or ghosts, and closer to Thanksgiving they have cookies with cute little turkeys on them. These are super easy to make if you don’t want to go through the hassle of a homemade treat because all you have to do is pop them in the oven. 

Apple and pumpkin picking are two other activities that make fall fun. One of my all time favorite places to get the best apples right near campus is Narrow Lane Orchard.  Pumpkin picking is another fun fall activity that I love to do every year. The best part about pumpkin picking is there are usually a ton of other activities that come along with it like hayrides and corn mazes, so you can make a whole day out of it. Plus, after you pick your pumpkin, you can bake the pumpkin seeds for a yummy treat and, of course, pumpkin carving is a must. If you are looking for a place close to campus that has a pumpkin patch, hayrides, corn mazes, the whole nine yards, you can check out Clark Farms, located right in Wakefield. 

Now, once you’ve done your apple picking and your pumpkin carving, it’s time for some spooky movies. While I’m not a big fan of horror movies, I love to watch movies like “Hocus Pocus” during this fall season. It’s one of my all time favorite movies. Fun fact, “Hocus Pocus 2” is about to begin filming right here in Rhode Island, so hopefully soon we will have another fall movie to add to our list. If you want to opt out of the gruesome horror films like I do, you’ll also have to bust out the old timers like “Twitches” and “Halloweentown,” the obvious Disney Channel original movie classics or maybe even “Scooby Doo: The Movie,” which gives me a Halloween/fall kind of vibe.

Last, but absolutely not least, enjoy the season! Take pictures of the beautiful foliage. Sit around the fire and cook smores with your friends. Unleash your inner child and jump into a pile of leaves. 

We are so lucky to live in a place that has all four seasons, and I know I sometimes take that for granted. Even though it is a little sad the summer has come to a close, there are so many activities to fill up the days of fall. Make sure to enjoy the season while it’s here, because as we’ve seen, it’s going to be behind us before we know it.