Fun Things To Do In October - Salty Inspirations

October! The start of spooky season! Let’s celebrate it with these fun things to do!

Decorate for Halloween
Take a fall color drive.
Go for a hike or nature walk.
Collect Leaves for a stained glass art project or leaf press
Go Kayaking.
Watch Halloween movies!
Take a ghost tour or a walking tour.
Take a Haunted Halloween Walk.
Visit a pumpkin patch.
Bake with Pumpkin! It’s Pumpkin Season!
Read a spooky story!
Celebrate St Francis of Assisi’s Feast Day on October 4th and the blessing of the pets.
Throw a Halloween Party.

Decorate for Halloween. Break out those decorations and transform your house into a haunted autumn wonderland. Have you ever walked by a decorated home for any holiday and smiled? The decorations bring joy and happiness. It centers us on the present season or holiday. It grounds us with a mental reminder of the wonderful gifts we have. Mental health is a huge concern. Little things like decorating can help reverse the effects of depression and anxiety.

Take a fall color drive. This time of year is my favorite. The crisp air, crunchy leaves, and beautifully painted landscape. Plan a picnic, pack a thermos of homemade hot chocolate, and become one with nature. The beauty is inspiring, the fresh air healing, and the quietness from our busy lives recharging. The best thing about this is it’s free! God gave it to us, so let’s not waste time on more screens. Get outside and heal!

Go for a hike or nature walk. Planning a hike or walk is easy. Visit All Trails to find a path near you! Just 20 minutes a day of outside time reduces stress, helps heal depression and anxiety, and improves sleep and cogitative thinking. Check your city for fall events and activities.

Collect leaves while on your nature walk. You can use a leaf press to flatten and dry them, creating framed art, or press them between wax paper to create a stained glass work of art.

Go Kayaking. If you have never kayaked before, it is something you should put on your bucket list. It’s a great workout and an amazing way to experience nature. Grab a group of friends, put a meal in the crock pot, pack a lunch, and enjoy God’s planet Earth. You will have a wonderful day and come home to a hot meal. Ditch society for a few hours and receive the healing benefits of nature.

A word of advice: my husband and I have a tandem kayak, and it works very well for us. We are great communicators, work hard, and enjoy our time together. We were once told that a tandem kayak is the divorce maker. We have witnessed first-hand people struggling to find their groove. I would suggest that if you want to be independent or struggle to work as a team, go for the solo kayak. The day will be just as fun, and everyone will return home happy.

Kayaking is a stroll don’t schedule a short window, or you could get anxious and stressed if your trip takes longer than you planned. You never know what you will see and how long you could end up exploring.

Do a simple Google search of Kayak trails near me to find great places to explore.

Watch Halloween movies! Plan a month’s worth of family fun and watch classic wholesome Halloween movies. Take it a fun step further by creating your list and sending it to friends and family. Ask them to watch the list and create a trivia night from all the movies! Trivia cards are easy to make. During the movie take a couple of notes and you”ll have your trivia game in no time.

Here is our list of favorites. Salty Inspirations Halloween movie list!

Take a ghost tour or a walking tour. Several cities offer ghost tours. They are a fun way to learn a little history of the area. The host usually will tell seriously cheesy jokes or puns, but that is part of the fun. You may encounter the supernatural or just have a silly historical night out.

We took a ghost tour in Key West; the history and stories we learned were amazing. There is nothing like standing where history happened while learning it. Unfortunately, we did not have any ghostly encounters. It must have been their day off. 😉 However, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and saw parts of Key West we might not have.

Haunted Halloween. While on the subject of spookables, why not take a Haunted Halloween Walk or go through a Haunted Corn Maze? This one is more for the thrill seeker in your life. If you like jump scares, costumes, and eerie nights with fog machines; then you need to find a haunted walk or house to do the Halloween season. I do not like gory slash-and-hack things, and unfortunately, much of this rich-in-history holiday has become just that. I would advise you to check around before you book a haunted walk, just in case you are like me. I don’t need to see blood, murder, and mayhem. Halloween was never supposed to be that.

Visit a pumpkin patch. Nothing gets you more in the mood for the season than a pumpkin patch! They often have fun activities, a farmers market, and hay rides! This one is rated E for Everyone. After visiting the pumpkin patch, watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. You don’t have to have kids just watch it. It’s Fun!

It’s Pumpkin Season! Try making homemade versions of your pumpkin favorites. Cutting out extra sugars, additives, and harmful ingredients is a great way to start improving your overall health. Maybe you want to lose weight. Or you are on a special diet. Maybe you have food sensitivities to many ingredients. Anytime you can make something at home, it will always save money and be healthier.

Here are a few of Salty Inspirations’ favorite Pumpkin Recipes.

Read a spooky story! Think Frankenstein, Dracula, or Sleepy Hallow. I absolutely love reading, but I struggle to find time for it. Oftentimes, I end up listening to audiobooks while I clean or work on crafting projects. Like making Halloween costumes.

LibriVox has hundreds of classic books available to listen to for Free.

Good Reads has a Best Halloween Books list if you need ideas.

Celebrate St Francis of Assisi’s Feast Day on October 4th and the blessing of the pets. Each year, Catholic churches everywhere, celebrate this inspiring saint by hosting a Blessing of the Pets. Everyone needs a blessing, and your fur babies are no exception. Take them to be blessed. If you don’t feel comfortable taking them in person, take a picture and ask the priest to bless them through it. Perhaps bring their collar or name tag as well.

Blessings are a powerful way to receive healing. Pray St. Francis’s Novena and ask him to intercede for you and your pet. I love Pray More Novenas. Their Novenas are short and have small chunks of facts about the saint as well. They a beautifully done.

St. Francis loved Mostaccioli, an almond cookie-like cracker. Make Mostaccioli for the people in your family and Doggy Mostaccioli for the fur babies.

Throw a Halloween Party. All you need is cute invitations, music, and few decorations (more is always better, but not always convenient), and a game or two. Make it easy on yourself and host it as a potluck.

Ask everyone to come in costume, that’s the best part of Halloween! Have them bring a soup or dish to share. Create a Halloween music playlist or stream something from Spotify or Pandora. And plan at least one group game to play, like Pictionary, bingo, trivia, or charades. Not everyone will want to play, but it’s very entertaining to all. If you have outdoor space and a fire pit, we would roast marshmallows and make s’mores.