October and Autumn Celebrations

October is always a fun time of year for me. Within the last few years, I have started to consider the beginning of October the beginning of Halloween, rather than the holiday just being the last day of the month. I know some people might find that silly, but I find that October, and Halloween in particular, means the start of  autumn—cooler days, warm drinks, and the family times and holidays that soon follow.

Not only does October mean this, but I also get to spend another year with my son who will be trick-or-treating for the first time.

Last year, we walked around our neighborhood. He wore a costume but wasn’t old enough to eat any candy yet. This year, I hope he’ll be excited to visit the neighborhood houses and have a few pieces of candy. He isn’t quite old enough for more than that.

We picked out a fun dragon costume for him, where it looks like he’s riding the dragon. It’s so cute and a little more grown up than his Tigger costume last year. Hopefully he’ll want to walk most of the night since it will be a little more difficult to carry him.

We’re also planning to get good use out of his costume by going to a trunk-or-treat event or two. Luckily, being on a military installation there are many opportunities aside from just walking around our neighborhood. Plus the surrounding communities have lots of similar events!

I’m also looking forward to his first pumpkin patch experience. We didn’t get them when he was smaller since he still loved to put everything in his mouth, so hopefully this year he will be excited to play in some pumpkin guts and maybe decorate his pumpkin with some stickers.

I think the most fun part will be heading to a pumpkin patch and getting to pick out some pumpkins, ride behind a tractor, and spend some time outdoors while it’s still warm enough not to need a lot of layers.

We also decorated our house a little on the outside. We don’t have quite as much real estate in the front yard as we did at our old house in Washington, but I did get to put some fun window clings on our screen door and a few glittery cut outs in the front window. I also put my glow-in-the-dark spiders on the gutter drain with some zip ties, which was a great idea especially since storms here sometimes mean saying goodbye to anything not well secured outside of your backyard.

So far, this has been a fun time of year and I look forward to Halloween, and especially going to visit family for the holidays.

What do you do to celebrate autumn and Halloween? Sound off in the comments below!

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Mary Spangler

Mary Spangler

Mary was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. She currently lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband, SFC Spangler, their two sons, and one cat. Previous duty stations include Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington, Rivanna Station, Virginia, and Fort Shafter, Hawaii. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Indiana University in 2009. During her college years she also spent some time volunteering for the Student Veteran’s Association, and participated briefly in the Army ROTC program. She loves writing, music, gardening, watching documentaries and movies, cooking, hosting get-togethers, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.

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