Admit it: fall is pretty. IT IS JUST SO DARN PRETTY. Like, each time you accidentally take a picture with your clumsy thumb while pulling your phone out of your pocket to check your grocery list: still pretty. The lighting is always golden. People are dressed in soft, flattering layers. Nature is constantly bragging about its new highlights, throwing them through the air as you pass by. So we keep leaving the house, exploring this pretty pretty season and all the things there are to do during it—mostly for the photo ops—even though we kind of hate them all.
Yeah, I said it. We hate these fall-themed things. But we still put on our peppy voices and plaid scarves and round up the offspring to do them before all this pretty disappears and it’s way too cold out to do anything at all outside. There’s an expectation for “family fun” or whatever, too. So we do it all, taking Insta-worthy pictures along the way. But on the inside? We hate it. Here’s why.
HAYRIDES
We pay actual money for an itchy and bumpy outdoor ride on a vehicle with lousy shocks all crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder with pungent strangers and wriggly, whiney kids who want to know when we get to the fun part. Gee, what’s not to love?
CORN MAZE
Who came up with the idea that getting lost in the cold on a muddy field with hangry children is fun for the whole family? Because I hate them, too.
CARVING PUMPKINS
Kids with knives plus slimy, slippery guts always ALWAYS ends up with me getting stabbed. I, personally, am not a fan of getting stabbed. Or trying to stop my own bleeding while cheerily preventing my kids from accidentally injuring themselves, too.
ROASTING PUMPKIN SEEDS
No matter how dry and gross they turn out we have to eat these salty razors that get stuck between our teeth and slice our gums to shreds. They are not delicious. This should not even be a thing. Why does it keep happening? Why isn’t anyone making it stop?
RAKING LEAVES SO KIDS CAN JUMP IN THEM
Exhausting yard work (because I didn’t have enough chores to do already) just to create a big pile of rot that neighborhood dogs will pee in while we’re inside dealing with the first of many injuries that happen during said jumping. Weeee! Are we having fun yet? Are those worms in my hair? Because that’s making it even more better!
APPLE PICKING
Uuuuuugh. The traffic jams. The bees. The sad ponies. The $5/lb apples. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? THERE ARE GROCERY STORES WITH PRODUCE SECTIONS LIKE EVERYWHERE NOW.
BAKING APPLE PIES
It seems like it’s easy, but it’s 100% not. Again with the knives and the bleeding. And who decided to make pie crusts so tricky? I feel duped.
SCARF KNITTING
Last time I did this I managed to handcuff myself with yarn and my kid had to cut me out. True story.
VISITING A HAUNTED HOUSE
They’re far away, expensive, and someone always cries. Usually me once I realize how much it costs for all of us to simply enter the gates once we arrive.
MAKING HALLOWEEN COSTUMES
We think it’ll be cheaper and more fun than buying them, but it’s 200x the cost and 4,000x the time and negative one bajillion more fun.
TALKING A WALK IN THE WOODS
There are way more bugs alive in the cool autumn weather than I thought there’d be, and no matter how cute the town we’re visiting is, we only get lost when near what is definitely a murder cabin within sight.
ROASTING MARSHMALLOWS AT A CAMPFIRE
Kids + Open flames + Long sticks + Flammable foodstuffs = Not the best idea.
ATTENDING THE SCHOOL FALL FESTIVAL
It’s always freezing cold, there’s always way too long a line at the balloon guy, and they always forget the one thing they wanted to do until the moment we’re just about halfway home. Yes, it’s a fundraiser for a good cause, but can’t we just pay them like $50 for an apple pie and a scarf someone else makes and go home? Now THAT would be some real fall family fun.
