Lifestyle
15 Reasons Why Fall Is The Best Season
Throughout the year, there are a special few moments that stand out. Whether or not you have a favorite season, everyone can agree that autumn in particular stands out as the best time of year.
If are you a firm believer in winter being the best, an adamant summer baby, or still not convinced, we’re about to change your mind. You won’t be able to help falling in love with autumn once you read the 15 reasons why fall is the best.
15. Leaves
Fall foliage is just about the biggest and most visual reminders that the seasons are changing. Typically the leaves shed their green hues before the weather gets cooler, so it’s a nice reminder everywhere you go about all the good things to come.
Obviously you also get to enjoy the rich color in display, creating a cascade of warm colors contrasting on a bright blue backdrop. The beautiful, vivid shades are a sight to behold, not to mention the appealing, musty smell of dead leaves, the sound of crunching through a carpet of them with your feet, or even jumping into a pile of them for fun.
Either way we can all find joy, inspiration, and beauty in the changing and falling leaves.
14. Cool weather
Trailing from our last point, the weather soon starts changing as well. After the increasingly hot days of summer have overstayed their welcome, non-90-degree temperatures are always a welcome relief.
We finally don’t have to run from air conditioner to air conditioner or suffer in sweat. There are always more sweaters and blankets you can add to get warm and cozy, but only so much you can do to cool off. Luckily with the changing of leaves comes a break from hot summer weather.
13. Food
Each season brings with it themed foods or fruits and vegetables that are ripe for the time of year. In fall, foods like apples, pumpkin, corn, cranberries, sweet potatoes, potatoes, berries, mushrooms, beets, garlic, ginger, squash, and more are now abundantly in season.
However, more importantly, so are things like pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, fresh corn on the cob, apple cider and apple pie, caramel apples, cider donuts, and cozy soups and stews. This time of year is the perfect excuse to enjoy all these oh-so-tasty seasonal foods.
12. Hot drinks
We’ve talked about food, but this is a particularly special season for drinks as well. At this time of year we obviously get to enjoy, as mentioned, pumpkin spice lattes, as well as an array of other flavored brews, hot cocoa, hot and cold cider, mulled wine, spicy chai teas, tea, and coffee.
A toasty mug of a warming drink is just the ticket to take a moment to relax, appreciate the changing leaves, treat yourself, and enjoy sipping something that will warm you while chill is slowly approaching.
11. Holidays
After a pretty lengthy dry spell of any larger holidays or festivities happening, now is the time of year when bigger holidays finally come around again. And hello Halloween — probably everybody’s favorite holiday in fall.
Who doesn’t love planning costumes and parties, trick-or-treating, candy, jack-o-lanterns, spooky stories, shows, and movies? And if Halloween isn’t quite your thing, there’s also Oktoberfest, and…
10. Thanksgiving
…is right around the corner as well! Thanksgiving brings its own myriad of special things. The Thanksgiving Day Parade, visiting family, hosting a meal with friends, cooking and baking, long-standing traditions, and, most importantly, revisiting all the things you’re thankful for in life.
With an amazing assortment of food and fun and friends and family, festivities are certainly high on the list for what makes fall the best time of year.
9. TV Shows (& Sports)
Speaking of special shows and movies, fall is typically when TV shows air new seasons after being off for the summer with reruns. Fall in America also happens to be when sports like football, hockey, and more return with gusto.
Finally, after a summer with no new content, TV shows, movies, and sports make their triumphant return as the temperature drops, the leaves change, and autumn arrives.
8. Activities
Also with each season comes its own set of special themed activities. Things like picnics in the spring, swimming and going to the beach in summer, and sledding and making snowmen in winter.
Fall probably has one of the widest ranges of activities, including but not limited to: hay rides, corn mazes, apple picking, bonfires, harvest parties, hiking, foliage rides, holiday parties, farmer’s markets, playing sports, crafts, scavenger hunts, bike rides, fall festivals, jack-o-lantern walks, haunted house tours, and canning.
Now is the time to enjoy fall activities before the rush of prepping for winter weather and winter holidays!
7. Perfect time to be outside
Branching on all the possible activities to do, there is even more reason to get out and do things with friends and family (or even by yourself) because it’s the perfect time to be outside. It’s not too hot or too cold. The bugs are dwindling.
The air is fresh, crisp, and blowing. There’s no danger of frostbite, sunburn — well, still wear sunscreen — and you don’t have to be in a bathing suit, shave your legs, or worry about snowstorms cancelling plans. It’s just the ideal time of year to get out of the house and enjoy making memories.
6. Color scheme
It may sound silly or strange, but the colors around at this time of year even evoke happiness and especially a deep sense of coziness.
Colors that are naturally “warm” on the spectrum, like red, orange, brown, yellow, burgundy, mustard, gray, gold, and earthy, muted greens are plentiful not only in nature and trees themselves but also in decorations and clothes.
This color palette is especially appealing since it is heavily earth-toned, mimicking something we are drawn to: nature. The perfect pairing of black and orange for Halloween, the warm leaf colors juxtaposed on a bright blue sky, and the comforting, earthly tones of food and drink this time of year are irresistible.
5. Fall Fashion
Finally, you can layer without slowly dying under a coating of sweat! But not so many you are bundled extra-thickly head to toe to keep the frostbite out. New and old fall fashions come out of the woodwork for the world to enjoy wearing and seeing other people wear.
There’s something uplifting in light jackets, cute hats, soft cardigans, snuggly flannels, cozy scarves, wool tights, dark boots. And this is the only time of year we get the chance to go completely off book and come up with amazing, clever Halloween costumes to wear for a night.
4. Bugs dying
Sounds morbid, but, you know it to be true. After the plethora of bugs and insects disturbing you all spring and summer, their numbers are now regularly reducing.
No more bees, wasps, creepy crane flies, black flies, spiders, beetles, ticks, and not to mention a greatly reduced number of nasty mosquitoes! Enjoy the natural lessening of these pests that have plagued you for months and crack open those windows and doors, worry-free.
3. Campfires
Sure, you can and people do have bonfires at the beach or inside in fireplaces in winter, but fall is the time to have them outside and into the night. It’s perfect to not worry about any bugs bothering you and not being too hot in front of the fire; it’s the perfect thing to take off that edge of cold in fall nights.
With camp and bonfires also come all the amenities: s’mores, cookouts, weenie roasts, ghost stories, and having a grand old time hanging out with friends and family.
2. Smells
This is near the end of our list to touch on each of the points above. With leaves, you get that pleasingly musty dead leaf smell, you get crisp, deeply satisfying fall winds, the tantalizing scents of fall foods and drinks; of pine, cinnamon, pumpkin, spice. Scent is the strongest form of memory; so little things will immediately bring back warm feelings.
The scent of your family recipe for soup, the plastic smell of a Halloween mask when you were young, the smell of apples dipped in caramel, the telltale scents of candy corn and bonfire smoke, the smell of your sweaters brought out from storage, of thanksgiving dinners, and walks outside your home. All your senses are swept up in fall!
1. Memories
Because of all the reasons mentioned above, this expanse between summer fun and the bustle of December holidays remains something fondly to be looked back upon. Memories of going back to school, family traditions, fun holidays, and the reminder that the calendar marches on and seasons change as fall comes again. It’s heartwarming to know that the weather will cool, the leaves will change, and the same old fall feelings that we can add new memories to will come.