Family Fun: Fall Bucket List

Outdoors

• Apple Pickin’; Go to your nearest apple orchard for the best apples
• Attend a Fall Festival
• Attend Oktoberfest
• Lay on the ground, face up, watching the leaves fall from the trees.
• Rake your neighbor’s lawn
• Spend the day at a nearby brewery
• Start an impromptu football game.
• Tailgate at a football game
• Take a day trip and listen to your favorite Fall Mix
• Take a day trip to a town you have never been too
• Enjoy a hike
• Take a walk through a park and try to catch falling leaves
• Take pictures of the changing leaves
• Visit a petting zoo
• Visit an indoor water park.
• Buy roasted chestnuts from a street vendor
• Dress like a lumberjack and chop some wood
• Enjoy some warm apple cider and sit out on the porch or balcony when it’s cool
• Enter a 5K (like the Zombie one)
• Fly a Kite
• Purposely get lost in a corn maize
• Get your face painted
• Go Antiquing
• Go bird watching.
• Take a walk and take in the clean, crisp autumn air. Enjoy the sound of leaves crinkling and crackling underneath your shoes.
• Go horseback riding
• Go on a hayride. Choose between horse and buggy or a truck-driven hayride.
• Get spooked on a scary hay ride
• Go to the local school’s homecoming game
• Build a bonfire
• Have a leaf catching contest
• Create a photo-shoot in a pumpkin patch or pile of leaves
• Have a wheelbarrow race
• Host a Garage Sale or spend an afternoon attending some
• Host a Square Dance in your backyard
• Jump in a neatly organized pile of leaves
• Plant acorns
• Start planting Bulbs for next Spring
• Plant Fall Flowers
• Snuggle on a porch swing
• Visit a Sunflower Farm

Indoors

• Create leaf rubbings
• Decorate the front porch
• Decorate the mantle with a fall theme
• Do a nature scavenger hunt
• Do some Fall Cleaning
• Eat caramel or candied apple
• Eat pumpkin and apple pies
• Embrace sweater weather
• Get a 1000-piece puzzle with an autumn motif to put together on a chilly night.
• Get a Fall colored basket and fill it with autumn produce such as apples, grapes, pears, potatoes, Indian corn, nuts, and wheat.
• Enter a Chili Contest
• Get a large tub of water, fill it with apples, gather a fun group of people, and go bobbing for apples.
• Get special . It can have brightly colored leaves on it, or a Halloween-theme, such as zombies or pumpkins.
• Light an apple or pumpkin scented candle
• Listen to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons – Fall.
• Invite friends & family to a Harvest Party
• Host a Murder Mystery Party
• Host a cozy wine and cheese night
• Make corn-husk dolls
• Make leaf art
• Craft a festive fall wreath
• Craft a Harvest Broom and hang it from your front door.
• Make a pinecone bird feeder with the kids
• Make a snowman out of pumpkins
• Carve your own Jack-0-Lantern
• Celebrate the colors of the season
• Collect golden autumn leaves and use them to decorate your dinner table, windowsills, or any other surface you choose
• Watch the World Series
• Create an indoor herb garden.
• Press leaves you collect in your journal
• Read the books that were on your Summer To Do List
• Spend a Sunday afternoon doing nothing but watching football and eating chili.
• Watch cheesy horror movies

Baking & Kitchen Ideas

• Apple pie–with a flaky, light, delicious crust–from scratch
• Bake Apple Cider Donuts
• Bake cookies shaped like autumn leaves
• Bring Fresh Pie to a Neighbor
• Fall Canning or preserving
• Make a Pumpkin Spice Latte (Espresso, pumpkin-flavored syrup and steamed milk. Topped with sweetened whipped cream and pumpkin pie spices.)
• Roast pumpkin seeds.
• Roast s’mores on a fire
• Sample all the different seasonal pumpkin flavored beers
• Bake pumpkin bread from scratch
• Make pumpkin cupcakes, or pumpkin pancakes.
• Get some nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, and cloves, and make Fall potpourri. Add pine cones, twigs, and dried flowers. You can also get Yankee Candles in Autumn Wreath, Spiced Pumpkin, or Harvest.
• Find a foolproof recipe for a crock-pot meal or a hearty soup.
• Bake a classic apple crisp.
• Shop at a local Farm or Farmers Market
  

Travel

• Go to New England (apparently, it’s the best kind of Fall)
• Plan a winter vacation
• Pack up and go Camping
• Rent a cabin in the mountains and take in the fall colors
• Enjoy Kayaking or Canoeing Expedition
• Volunteer on a farm
• Tour a winery
• Visit a National Park
• Tour a Spooky Graveyard
• During the month of October, Salem Haunted Happenings hosts a Halloween festival with family-friendly events, ghost tours and trick-or-treating.
• Attend A Renaissance Fair
• Stay at a romantic B&B
• Savannah’s combination of battlefields and mystery contribute to its supernatural reputation.
• Colonial Williamsburg embraces its spooky side with “A Haunting on DoG Street.”

Indoors

• Binge-watch a season of American Horror Story.
• Bob For Apples
• Come up with pun-based costume ideas.
• Create a Candy Wreath
• Make a Halloween Tree and hang up ornaments shaped like Frankenstein, Dracula, skulls, and orange and black glass balls.
• Create a Halloween Village filled with creepy, scary Halloween themed houses, figurines and accessories.
• Dance to The Monster Mash.
• Host a wine and candy tasting party
• Learn the Choreography to “Thriller”.
• Listen to your favorite Halloween songs.
• Make Candy Apples
• Bake Halloween-themed cupcakes.
• Make Witch Slime​
• Organize a Halloween party.
• Family Fun Pumpkin Hunt (Just like an Easter Egg Hunt but with Mini-Pumpkins)
• Read spooky stories like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” or “The Telltale Heart”.
• Throw A Murder Mystery Party
• Turn your home into a Haunted House Tour.
• Watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”.
• Watch Beetlejuice.
• Binge on Ghost Hunters on SyFy. 
• Watch Hocus Pocus.

Outdoors

• Hershey park in the Dark
• Attend a Local Zombie Walk
• Create a Halloween Scavenger Hunt
• Spend The Night In A Haunted Location
• Stay in a group and get lost together in a corn maze.
• Take a night hike with brave friends.
• Plan A Theme Park Night
• Visit a pumpkin patch and choose several pumpkins to take home.
• Visit an actual haunted site.
• Try To Escape From A Creepy Escape Room
• Participate in a costume contest.
• Explore a Local Graveyard
• Creep through a Haunted House.
• Dress up and go to a costume party.
• Dress your pet for a Halloween Parade.
• Get your nails done like a witch.
• Go trick-or-treating.
• Go for a walk and look at Halloween decorations.
• Make a scarecrow.

Indoors

• Decorate for Christmas while waiting for the turkey to cook.
• Family Game Night after dinner while you have coffee and pie.
• Have a pie eating contest.
• Have a pie bake off. Everyone bakes a different pie & the winner doesn’t have to do any clean up.
• Give the Gift of Tupperware: to carry their helping of turkey and dressing home in at the end of the night
• Make a classic Thanksgiving meal: turkey with all the trimmings.
• Pass Down a Family Recipe — Or Make a New One
• Plan a “Friendsgiving”
• Set an elegant harvest table of Thanksgiving.
• Start the day with an indulgent, relaxing breakfast.
• Take a Family Fun Photo.
• Take the wishbone from the turkey and make a wish.
• Thanksgiving Day Conveniences: Make it a potluck. 
• Thanksgiving Movie Marathon
• Video Chat with Faraway Relatives
• Watch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”
• Enjoy the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on TV.
• Watch the Dog Show

Giving Back

• Invite someone who doesn’t have a place to go.
• Invite local college students who can’t make it home to your home for Thanksgiving.
• Even if you do not know anyone in the hospital, you can create cards or gifts for those who need them most.
• Serve Thanksgiving Dinner to a shelter or food kitchen.
• Surprise your mail carrier & trash removal team with a thank you card & homemade Caramel Apple Slices.
• Go grocery shopping and put together Thanksgiving dinner for a family in need.
• Ask the Kids to Serve Dessert
• Make a list of things you’re grateful for.

Craft Ideas

• Craft a Cornucopia
• Craft a Family Tree
• Create hand-print turkeys.
• Make preserved leaf place cards that read “Thank God for Grandma”, “Thank God for Daddy”, etc.
• Spend “Black Friday” making homemade gifts for loved ones.
• Educate yourself on the actual history of American Thanksgiving.
• Ugly Thanksgiving Sweater Contest

Outdoors

• Attend an NFL Thanksgiving game
• Attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Live
• Take a Thanksgiving Trip
• Family Football Game.
• Run a Turkey Trot
• Sample the Local Flavor
• Enjoy a long walk together after dinner.

Remembrance

• Turn the Tablecloth Into a Keepsake: Ask your guests to write/draw what they’re thankful for, you’ll have a reusable memento.
• Remember loved ones who have passed.
• Gratitude Note on each guest’s plate.
• Have morning devotions based upon bible verses in which God’s people gave thanks.
• Go around the table and have each person give thanks for at least one blessing they’ve received this year.
• Make a list of things you’re grateful for.
• Reflect on the Year
• Browse Through Photo Albums and reminisce.