Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I cannot even explain how much I miss fall in New England. It is such a magical time of year where life starts to slow down after the craziness of the summer, & before the busyness of the holiday season sneaks up on you. In the past years, working in retail, October meant the craziness was upon us. Even though malls aren’t crazy yet, preparation for the biggest money making season was here.

For me in retail, my social life kind of took a back seat from October to January, so now that it is my first year out of retail management… I am celebrating. There are so many things on my list of Favorite Fall Activities that I had to narrow it down to just 7. (Well 5 just wasn’t enough.)

Decorate with real pumpkins

Even if it is just at the grocery store, picking up real pumpkins add the perfect amount of festivity into any home or office. I even have a little gourd on my desk at work.

Take a drive to see the foliage

Depending where you live, this may be a little harder but nothing screams fall more to me than seeing trees full of gold, orange, & red leaves. When I lived in New England all I needed to do was step outside of my door & I had a plethora of colored leaves at my fingertips. Now I try to take a trip to the Central Coast every fall to experience as much foliage as I can in California.

Wear seasonally appropriate clothes, even if it doesn’t match the weather

Everyone has their own style & mine, all year round, is neutrals, denim, light weight outwear pieces with a little pop of burgundy or army green. I live in fall 4 seasons of the year. Do it! Wear boots, wear sweaters, wear capes… wear it all!

Take a train ride

A few years ago my friends & I took a steam train ride to a pumpkin patch & it was such a good time. Just north of LA is a small town called Fillmore where for $22 for adults you can take a train ride to a little harvest festival at the end of the train line. There are pumpkins for sale, a little haunted house, a place for pictures & a little corn maze. It is still one of my favorite fall memories.

Go apple picking

Apple picking is a fall staple when you grow up in Connecticut. There are apple orchards all over the state, but I haven’t been apple picking in probably 7 years. This year we went. Lucky for me, Chris enjoyed it just as much as I did… if not more. He was trying to get only the most perfect apples. More on the apple orchard later but Oak Glen is the cutest little town in the San Bernardino Mountains; you should stop by if you’re in Southern California. I had no idea it was so cute and quaint.

Make a pie… any flavor pie

And what do you do after you go apple picking… make a pie obviously. What else are you going to do with the ungodly amount of apples you just picked? This week I am planning on making my first pie from scratch. I am going to try to make the crust from scratch but let’s be honest, I have a store bought crust in the freezer right now.

Go to a haunted house

This is not one of my favorites, but this year Chris talked me into going to Universal’s Halloween Horror Night & it was so much fun. The anxiety beforehand nearly killed me, but once I figured out what keeps the actors away I was all in… PS. Don’t act scared. If you look at them unamused they’ll go away. It’s great.