Family Ways to Celebrate Fall
When we lived in Urbana, Illinois, a visit to Curtis Apple Orchard was our favorite fall treat. We played in the barn, pulled a red wagon through the orchard to pick apples, ate fresh apple doughnuts in the snack bar, and bought popcorn, honey, and fresh apple cider to take home.
A fun activity in Cookeville, Tennessee, was to drive to Muddy Pond to watch the Mennonites make sorghum, using a mule to crush the sorghum.
Now that we live in Gainesboro, I enjoy going to Granville with Mary Evelyn and her children for the Fall Celebration and Scarecrow Walk. That was our plan for this past Saturday; but when Mary Evelyn and I talked on Saturday morning, we both agreed that it was just too chilly and rainy.
That’s when I decided that we would host our own fall festival in our own living room.
We started with lunch, keeping the menu simple: hot dogs, chips, and grapes. Here’s our hot dog stand. I tied an apron on Clara and she served as our hot dog vendor.
The children ate at the the kiddie table. After lunch it served as the sticker spot for marking which activities they completed.
I decided to match the activities that were happening at Granville. For our quilt festival, we laid out John, Bethany, and Mary Evelyn’s baby quilts.
For the sorghum-making demonstration, Clara and Wesley took turns riding on our “mule.”
I filled the basket beside the mule with our fall knick knacks and Clara decorated the “festival grounds.” Here are Mother’s turkey salt and pepper shakers, the Pilgrims we’ve had since before the mid-80s, and the pear and pumpkin salt and pepper shakers Bethany brought me home from the drug store one day. I think the plaques came from Dollar General.
I don’t remember where we got Corny, but he’s been part of the family for a long time, though he usually hibernates in winter, spring, and summer.
Mr. Pinecone Turkey has been with us since our Mississippi days (we left there in 1985).
The Granville festival has a bouncy castle. Here’s ours. Granville also has a train ride around town. We used Duplo people to represent Clara and Wesley. They rode around the rug.
Granville had storytelling, so here’s our storyteller in action.
Granville also had entertainment. Whether we actually had entertainment or not is a question for Mary Evelyn and the children, but Ray and I gave it a try with our “Tootsie Wootsie Medley.”
Granville also had scarecrows all over town. We just had two, but ours walked and talked and even sang the Tootsie Wootsie medley. Here they are:
While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night Shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22
That’s what God promised when He gave us the rainbow!
Very creative, and looked pretty entertaining as well. I would have liked to have heard the Tootsie, Wootsie rendition!
Thank you! We used to do that medley for homeschool groups. When we get a chance, I hope we can make a silly music video of it to post on our website. Stay tuned.