#317: Autumn Traditions

0:00Elsie You're listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast. Your cozy comfort listen. I'm your host Elsie Larson. Emma And I'm your host Emma Chapman. Elsie Today's episode is all about rituals, recipes, and rhythms that make autumn the coziest season of all, including traditions we repeat every year and the ones we're trying for the first time. Emma Huzzah! I love autumn. Elsie Yes, me too. Emma Okay, before we jump in, I wanted to talk about something. It's that I have fully, all the way started my newsletter. So I want you guys to know about it. It is called Joy with Edges, and if you're not signed up, you can sign up at emachapman.com. There's a couple of sign up places there, and yeah, my newsletter is free. I'm not planning to monetize it just because I don't feel I have that much. I'd rather just keep it free. To me, it's just better. But what it's going to be is a monthly newsletter. So there's one a month. I might at some point do two in a month, but that will be the max. So don't need to feel like you're going to get more than you want. Maybe someday you'll want more from me. I don't know, but

0:19that's how much I have planned for now for the coming year. I've already sent out the first two. By the time I'm recording this, I'll be sending out the third one later this month. So sign up now if you want it. But yeah, why is it called Joyd with Edges? To me, the newsletter is kind of so the the tagline under that is unearthing the art of play. So to me, it's very much kind of like if you've ever done the artist way, but you wished it was a little bit broader, other than just art. Which I love the artist way, by the way, and recommend it all the time. Then that's kind of what I'm aiming for with this. I want to talk. I'm passionate about and want to talk about play as an adult, and by the way, I also talk about play for children and things that I do with my kids. The newsletter is very personal to me. It's very much about my journey, although I try to offer up ideas that are different from just my own interest as well. But it's very much like finding that spark of joy in your life that might be missing because you've kind of let yourself get bogged down with responsibilities and things that we have to do as an adult: caring for others, caring for

0:30ourselves, life maintenance, making money. And sometimes you, I think, I can feel kind of silly taking time to do things that are just joyful and playful, and maybe silly or maybe weird. For me, these kinds of activities tend to lean towards art projects, weird art projects. But it could mean anything. It could mean taking piano lessons or learning to ride a horse as an adult. Anything that's fun, that's joyful to you, and it's also about joy. That so, why is it called joy with edges? It should have a little bit of friction. It's about lifelong learning. It's about putting your time towards something, growing your skills in some way. You know, you can find some joy from just like eating something delicious or scrolling your phone. But this is something much beyond that. This is more about like completing a task and the joy that you feel from that. So anyway, so the first two have already gone out. The first newsletter was very much about like how I got to this place, how I felt like I was going through a little bit of a midlife crisis, and part of what I realized was I very intentionally plan a lot of like joyful play for my children, and I actually really need

0:41that in my own life. And so I talked about that. I often, not always, but often put newsletters on my blog, which is@immachapun.com, so you can read them later. So if you've missed the first two, you can go read them there. There will be things, though. I'm just being honest with you. There will be things in the newsletter that I don't put on the blog, in part because I like having I like having subscribers who want to hear from me. It feels a little bit more private than just a public blog that anyone could read. Yeah. So there are going to be like pictures and things that I put in the newsletter that won't go on the blog. So I would sign up for the newsletter if you have any interest. I am signed up and I received her first two newsletters already, and I definitely recommend it.

0:49Emma So go to EmmaChatman.com if you want to sign up. I think you definitely should. Yeah, it's fun. It's got like I show stuff that I'm doing. I give ideas for things you could be doing. I always do like a monthly challenge, and then it has like some kind of little essay or my thoughts on something. It's really just positive and fun. And then you get some random like art projects I'm working on. Sometimes things I've done with my kids. It's really kind of similar to our more random blog posts that we used to do on a beautiful mess. I feel like this is my new outlet to share a little bit of that content, and then also just to talk about why I think it's important to like do fun in your life as an adult and make space for it.

0:57Elsie It's very important. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I'm so happy you're doing it, and I think that it'll be it'll be a great spot. Like, and I'm really enjoying. Like, I'm always looking for cozy newsletters to subscribe to, and I'm always like trying out different ones. And as long as they don't send. Too many emails, right? Then I remain subscribed usually. Emma Yeah, that's why I'm like, it's one a month, maybe two, that's it. Elsie One a month is not at all too many. So we have a listener email from Paige. She says, "Autumn traditions. What are your favorite annual autumn traditions? Food, events, rituals. What are new traditions that you want to try this year? Decorating kids' activities, recipes. What are some traditions you're excited to start with your family as your kids grow? And have you ever tried anything that was a big flop? And what did you learn from that? Okay, let's do these one at a time. I think this is so fun.

1:10Okay, so first question: What are your favorite annual autumn traditions? So for me, okay, I'll go first. I am obsessed with my kitchen movies, which I've talked about at length. But you know that it's autumn when I start playing the Nightmare Before Christmas, and I like to play the first Harry Potter because it has you know the scene with the pumpkins hanging in the dining room. I like that, and my kids really like. There's a a lot of my kids really like the Corpse Bride, which is not actually my favorite, but they like it. I don't know, and they also love Frank and Weenie. Frank and Weenie's awesome. So I love Frank. My favorite is the Nightmare Before Christmas, though, because I like the songs. Yeah, I'm like very, I'm very into those little singing. It's kind of like my only cartoon.

1:18Emma It's kind of Christmassy, though, too, to me. You know, like you could play it either time. I think it's a Halloween movie. Elsie Yeah. Emma But I'm just saying, it's you know got it's got a lot going on. Elsie Yeah, yeah, no, I think so. So yeah, pretty much this time of year, like it's like decorating, baking, making fun recipes, and I like to like plan ahead a lot about like Halloween costumes and things like that. Like I, I'm not going to be caught off guard. Don't worry ever about my Halloween costumes this year. I feel like I'm like kind of going hard. So yeah, I'm pretty excited. You were like decorated. It was like mid August, and you're like check it out. I was like, whoa, pumpkin explosion in the kitchen. It was awesome. I honestly just was like, I'm just gonna die. Like I, I just hit a day where I was like, the there's only one thing I want to do, and I'm gonna do it.

1:33Emma Yeah, man. No, I mean, I feel like everyone's always bringing up my Halloween sweater vest I wore in the spring because I was like, I'm sad, and I was like, oh, she's she's doing what she wants. Is when when I saw it and I loved it. Elsie What are your favorite autumn traditions? Emma Yeah, so mine are very similar. So I always do Halloween sugar cookie decorating with the kids, or honestly, I've done it like with adult friends too, especially before we had kids, or when my first kid was really little and he wasn't doing it. So it's always been kind of a part of my life, I just love to decorate sugar cookies. I have a couple different recipes, but the main one I use is the one on our site, Royal Icing Sugar Cookies. But I love doing Halloween ones because I feel like you can do kind of silly ones.

1:45Like I was looking at pictures from last year, and I let the kids-they had like these pumpkins that had these tiny little knives, and like you know, it's just funny. It can be so fun and silly, so that decorating. So for me, I kind of start easy, and then it starts to get, it starts to grow. I let mine kind of snowball. So at first, I just get out like the pumpkin soap dispensers and throw blankets and kitchen towels and bring all the yeah the kids' pajamas, Halloween pajamas come out, and like Oscar has Halloween bed sheets, so it's like when those everyday household items start to switch over into fall Halloween, the kids know it's coming. And then after that, we start to add the wreaths. And I have a Halloween tree. I do a Christmas tree that's black, and we do ornaments on it. Here's the thing: I love a Halloween tree. It's basically a Christmas tree that's black, and the reason is because I think ornaments are such a great craft to do with kids. I love to do like a picture ornament with the kids every year, where it like has a picture of them in it, and they paint it or whatever, add things to it. And then I love to like. There's just so

1:56many ideas online of like ornaments you can make that could go either way, Halloween, Christmas, and so I kind of like having a tree for Halloween and one for Christmas. I know it's a lot, but it's kind of just like there's a lot that we can do and make together, and then it can get displayed. I kind of view a Christmas. This is going to sound crazy, but I view a Christmas tree or a Halloween tree as almost like a tiny art gallery that just gets put up once a year, and a lot of the ornaments are just like these tiny little pieces of art that the kids have made, and it's not necessarily like a painting on a tiny canvas. Although I have done that, it can be all sorts of things. But that's almost how I think of it, and I love having a little art gallery up in my house. I could not love it more. I almost am like, should I get an Easter tree? Maybe I don't know. So it. So decorating, and then the last one that I'll mention-it's like every year-and I've been doing it for a while-is we do a Halloween movie night. We also do a Thanksgiving movie night. We also do a Christmas movie night. Every Friday night at our house is movie night, which just means we

2:07don't have to eat dinner at the table, which is probably the kids' favorite part because they're just like we don't have to sit at the table. It's like we're torturing them. I'm like, you know, we sit at the table for like 10 minutes. I'm just trying to teach you to not be barbarians. My God! But anyway, they love not having to sit at the table, and we get to watch a movie and eat popcorn and snacks. That honestly, not that different of a meal, but it includes popcorn, and so and it's like all set out differently than on their plates.

2:12So just feels special to them. So every Friday night is movie night, and for the seasons, I do like a special one. It's different every time, but I just try to make it feel a little different and elevated. Like one year for the Halloween movie night, I set up this like $50 tent that I had bought off Amazon and put little lights on it, and had like the Halloween throw blankets inside it, and the kids thought that was amazing. And obviously, we watched like some kind of Halloween movie. Oscar loves this one called Boo Fest, but it's about like this legend called No Noggin, and he talks about it all year round. But it's Curious George Halloween is what he does, and so you know that's a big thing that we do. I don't know how I'm going to make the Halloween movie night special this year, but I've already bought some candy for it because we were at World Market and they had some spooky candy, and I'm like, perfect. I'll save this for movie night.

2:22Elsie So yeah, and then I'll do a Thanksgiving one and a Christmas one. That's what I'm like. Love. Okay, what are some new traditions that you want to try this year? I think I just have one. I am trying to do some boo baskets. I already started. Yeah, I'm making one for the girl that hosts our book club, and I just thought I don't know. Like I think it's fun, and like I don't know. I just want to like do that, and then I think if we, if I can, I don't want to like. Let's give this one like a bonus point status. But you know how like you make the Christmas cookie boxes. I kind of want to try to make Halloween cookie boxes and give them to some of our neighborhood friends. I think that would be really fun. But that I think that to do that, Marigold, I would have to like designate a weekend just for that. Yes, yeah.

2:31Emma It's funny you say that because this year I was gonna do basically like a Thanksgiving cookie box with the kids, make some batch of cookies with them, and then I'll probably make a few things like on my own because them doing all that will be too much. They want to do like one recipe with me, and then we're gonna make the little box and we were going to take it to some of our neighbors. So there's these like little girls who live down the street who we see a lot on walks, but we've never really met them. We just kind of wave, and I thought it'd be fun to take them something. And then there's this older couple that lives next door, and I know the gentleman's name, but I haven't. I've met the the wife many times, but I actually don't know her name.

2:40Elsie Okay. Emma And anyway, I've noticed that when I take Hugo out on walks, she almost always needs to put her trash out, or will come outside to to rake. And she always says hi to Hugo, and he waves at her. And she's mentioned before she had they had three daughters. You know, we've chatted before, and I just feel like she would love to get something from the boys because I think she comes out to say hi to him, you know. So anyway, so I was like, oh, I'm gonna do something where we can meet a couple of the neighbors that we like, kind of know, but we haven't really met them, met them, and it's just kind of like cute. But I thought it would be more of a Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna do it on Thanksgiving, but just not necessarily Halloween themed, just more fall themed. I guess is what I'm saying. So it's funny you say that. So that's what I was going to add this year too, just like a little hi neighbors kind of thing. I love it. I just love it so much. Okay, and then the last one. Have you tried anything that was a big flop? And what did you learn? Okay, I'm trying to think. I know. I really sat and thought about this because I feel like

2:54these are always the fun stories to tell, and I'm like, I feel like I'm always telling things about my kids or my life, and it might sound like I never have flops. I'm like, no, I definitely do. I think I just move past them really fast, and it's also like I don't take a picture of that, so then I don't remember it. Whereas I, you know, yeah, I'm like, hmm, what? What has been a big flop? Because I'm like definitely have had moments where it's like, ooh, that didn't work.

2:59Elsie Yeah, so I've been a parent for almost 10 years, and I think the main flop is trying movies. But when yeah, every movie flops, and then I just keep trying them again the next year and the next year, and then eventually it works. Because I remember when the kids were toddlers. I tried like probably it took three or four years before they enjoyed Hocus Pocus. But I was I was so determined. I never gave up. And guess what? Now they think it's cool and they like it. Yep. So I think if you if it is a flop, like when you have growing children, just try it again the next year because it might not be.

3:06Emma Yeah, same. There's been many times we tried a movie and it was like not scary, but too scary for him that time. But then like six months later, he was into it. Yeah, like okay. Then all of a sudden, he's like wanting to watch Home Alone in the middle of summer, and I'm like, okay, I don't, you know, like okay, yeah. Trying to think of anything else? I think sometimes you plan something and the weather just doesn't cooperate. To me, there's a lot of times as a parent where if I'm planning something that's a little bit weather dependent, I kind of have a backup plan in my mind. If it's like too cold or too hot, or you know, because it just can be miserable if it's like we're all freezing to death, or we're all sweating to death, and this is not fun anymore. So, but that can be hard because even like trick or treating can sometimes be. It's just if that day happens to be freezing cold, it's like, well, yeah, this is what it is. So, no, I agree. Yeah, just kind of have to roll with it sometimes.

3:17Elsie Okay, we have another message from Jenna, and she said, "What are your fall essentials, recipes, decorations, parties, non-negotiables? Okay, so recipes. I think I'm gonna say baked brie when you make it into a little pumpkin. I just like love it. If I can't make it for Halloween, I'll make it for Thanksgiving because it can go either way. But I just I love baked brie too. I think it's like the most delicious food, and usually every year I only get it like one or two times, you know. So that's extra special. What's your food?

3:24Emma I love to make the Oreo truffles. Ooh, and my kids don't love them, so I tend to make them for our holiday party for book club. That's kind of like a time that seems to always work for me, yeah. So, but I make them for for anything, really. I I just want to eat them, frankly. It's just Oreos. It's delicious. Elsie My family loves them. We make them for Halloween and Christmas. They're so good. Th Emma This year I was wanting to do more. So we're kind of a big football family, and that's a big part of fall too.

3:32And even the boys are starting to enjoy watching football more. It's kind of long for their age, yeah. So they kind of like are in and out a little bit. But Oscar's starting to like understand when they're scoring, and he likes to cheer, and you know it's really cute. So anyway, so I'm just trying to like bring a little more, like oh, these are our some of our football snacks. Like I'm going to try out some other things this year. Like I wanted to make some like baked pretzels and see how that goes over. I don't know, just stuff like that. Love it. Things the kids might like, but it's like this is a football food that we make this time of year. You know, it just makes it like cozy and fun.

3:39Elsie Yeah, no, that's really good. Okay, what about decoration? I mean, decorations. I feel like just like I'm gonna decorate. Last year was the only year because we were still renovating that we didn't like fully decorate, but we still put up the Halloween tree. So I feel like we tried a little bit. Like even though our house was like a wreck and it was like kind of not worth it. We still like had a little symbolic thing, so yeah, just. But I don't really feel like there's like any one decoration. It's just more like the experience of just doing it and going all all in. I like that feeling.

3:46Emma Yeah, I agree. One thing we haven't talked about yet is I do love to do pumpkin decorating with the kids or anyone. I like to do it on my own too. By the way, but the way I do it with my kids at their age right now, because there really isn't a way to let them carve. It's just not, especially the two-year-old. There's really no. So I do pumpkin decorating stickers. Elsie Ooh, yeah. Emma And I actually think they're really fun to do as an adult too, because you can just buy this giant, a giant pack of them for like $5, and buy a whole bunch of pumpkins that are small, and just let the kids make silly faces on them, and then we put them all outside the outside the house. So I feel like all our mail carriers are probably like these people get it, you know. So it's just out there, and we put a whole bunch by the free library too, the little free library in our front yard, so you can see our creations, and they don't last forever. But it's just fun. No, I love it. When they get bigger, we're gonna carve, but not yet. Yeah.

4:00Any other non-negotiables? Um, we also do this thing we call them wagon walks. Oh, we do it in the spring too. It's kind of like something we do when the weather's not too hot and not too cold. So fall and spring is when it happens. So I love a wagon walk. We'll do it in the morning or we'll do it in the evening. But we have this like soft wagon that can fold up. I mentioned it with the the pirate ship in the last episode. But the kids just sit in the wagon and Trey and I pull the wagon and we do a walk around our neighborhood. It's kind of like a walk to the end of the street. Our neighborhood has sidewalks in like 30% of it or something doesn't have sidewalks everywhere, so we kind of stick to the sidewalk. And we also have a lot of hills in our neighborhood, and we don't do any hills with the wagon because it's really hard. So we just kind of do this like straight walk on the sidewalk, and then we turn around and go home, and it takes like 15 minutes, 20 minutes. It's not a long walk, but the kids just kind of we play music, and the kids will just kind of like roll around in the wagon and just be silly. Sometimes we collect

4:11pine cones, things like that. It's fun. Elsie Fun. That's fun. Okay, I think my non negotiable is our neighborhood has this witches weekend, and so I just I love it. I'm obsessed with it. At the first one, I got the like my my bad little hand tattoos from Micro Lady Girl, you know. And then there there's usually like a tarot reader or an aura photo or like things like that, and a couple years ago, the girls did homemade potions, and this year they were invited to have their own stand again. So we're trying to decide if we want to do potions again, or if we want to do something that's more like fortunes, or I don't know, some it'll be some kind of cute little thing. But yeah, I love just like kind of all the neighborhood things. I can't get enough of it. I want to like, and I want to take a lot more walks because as soon as it starts to become cool, which it's definitely not yet. All right.

4:21So, do you have a book report, sister? Emma Yes. So I finished reading *The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore. Ooh! So, if you don't know, she has lots of contemporary romance. Also, Laurie Gilmore is a pin name, and I love it because I think it's kind of inspired by Gilmore Girls. I love it. I read that somewhere, and even if it's not true, I still just in my mind, I'm like, yeah, I get it. Especially after reading this, because this book was-if you've ever watched Gilmore Girls, then this book is cozy like Gilmore. It has that cozy vibe. It has that fun, fun, cozy vibe to it. So it's a contemporary romance. It's also a small town series. So a lot of romance authors will do kind of a small town series. Her series is called Dream Harbor. That is the fictional town that this takes place in. This, the Pumpkin Spice Cafe, is the first in the series, and yes, the series has a Christmas one. So if you read this one and you like it, great news. There's already a Christmas one out.

4:32I think it has five or six in the series. Not sure. There's a somewhat more recent one, and I don't know if that's number five or number six. But anyway, this is the first, and you don't have to read them all. They are standalone. You can read this one and just enjoy it for what it is, or you can keep going in the series. So this is about a young woman who this happens early in the book, so I'm not spoiling anything. Her boss dies, and she finds his body, and it sort of is a wake up call in her life for I need I need a life that's not as workaholic fast paced I need to figure out more who I am and I want to have actual friends in my life and like a life beyond work because my boss didn't always have that and he died at his desk alone and I don't want the same thing to happen to me and that's sort of her her wake up call. So she moves to her aunt owns the pumpkin spice cafe in Dream Harbor, and her aunt wants to retire. So her aunt is like, "Why don't you become the new owner of the pumpkin spice cafe? And so she takes the chance and moves to this town. She doesn't know anyone. She doesn't know how to run

4:43the coffee shop. She's figuring it out, and she meets a very handsome farmer who delivers pumpkins to her pumpkin spice cafe. Oh, and they hit it off. And you know, a lot of things happen in the book. There's like a mare who has dreams where he predicts the future. She sets up the author sets up who will be the love interest in one of the next books, and it's just really cute, really fun. There's a fall festival. There's just lots of stuff that I feel like it's kind of the perfect book to read for starting the fall season. And I read it actually like about a month ago, and I was just like, well, now I'm excited for fall.

4:49Love it, love it so much, super fun. I read it like in a few days. It's like an easy, quick, fun one. It is spicy. Takes a little bit to get there, but there is definitely some sex scenes, and they are fun. So if you like that kind of thing, as you know I do, you will like the Pumpkin Spice Cafe. Elsie Hell yeah! Oh, that's cute. Okay, so I decided I'm behind on my reading goal for the year, and I'm not gonna miss it. Last year, I didn't get the whole 52 book goal, and I was like, I was sad about it. It was the first year I didn't make my goal, so this year I am determined to catch up and get my goal. So I have been reading in between. I'm just, I'm reading just like books I want to read, and then in between, I'm reading short, easy classics because it's fun. Yeah, it's fun. So yesterday I listened to the audio book of Peter Pan. I think it was like four hours. I have read it before in the past, but I wanted to refresh it, and I just love it. It's it's like a little bit of a comfort book for me. And okay, on Audible, you have to know. I.

5:00Think that it's free, and they have a version performed by Lily Collins, the actor, which she did a great job. So know that, but yeah, it is such a cute book. Like, and I was like, I I had my paper copy kind of, I was painting while I listened to it, but and I had my paper copy aside, and I was like constantly getting it out and like highlighting sections and stuff like that. But it's beautifully written. And then at the end, I had a little bit of an ugly cry in the last chapter, which I feel like is pretty special.

5:05Emma That is. Elsie Yeah, it's just kind of exciting to also like compare classic stories with like the Disney version that we grew up on because they are pretty significantly different. So anyway, I recommend it if you haven't read it. It's definitely worth it. It has I wouldn't say has a sad ending, but I think it has a a tearjerker ending, Melancholy, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's beautiful. Like it has so many good lines. I couldn't believe it. Emma Lovely.

5:15Elsie Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with an episode called "Old Houses, New Chapters. You can email us any time with requests for topics for our podcast or with hot takes. We always need more hot takes. As hot as possible is what we prefer. 200 degree lattes. Podcast@abeautiful mess.com.