My Fall Bucket List

It’s officially my favorite season. Aside from enjoying all things pumpkin spice and this crisper weather, there are a bunch of things I’d like to cross off my seasonal bucket list this month and next. Here are a few of them…

Host a wine harvest dinner. After our trip out to Napa, we’ve become wine people and I’m so happy about it. Okay, we have a LOT to learn, but that just means we have to go back again and again to do it, right? We’re expecting a few bottles in the next few weeks from a few of our favorite vineyards and I’d love to host a few friends over to our place for a harvest dinner. Since we weren’t able to make Turnbull’s this year, I think this would be fairly close to the next best thing. This is probably pie-in-the-sky since our fall is so nuts, but this is on my bucket list for the future! How fun would it be pick a few reds and crisp autumnal whites and celebrate a new wine harvest season with friends over dinner? Here are a few tips I gathered from our trip to Duckhorn on how to sip and taste wine.

Celebrate Halloween. Last year, we hosted our very first masquerade party and it was too much fun. It was a few weeks after I launched Magnolia Stripes, so it was one of the first events we covered for the blog! I’ll always have good memories from it and my fabulous hubby and friends who helped make it so wonderful.

Show how thankful we are for our friends. We host a small Friendsgiving every year, which is a faux holiday that holds special meaning for Hubby and me since we met over one in Georgetown years ago! We cherish putting together a beautiful tabletop and sharing some of our favorite dishes and getting to sample family dishes and specialties from our friends, too. Here is our tabletop from last year and a few helpful tips for hosting one of your own.

Embrace the decor of the season. Here’s one I can check right off. I pulled together my first-ever tall arrangement using dried eucalyptus, pheasant feathers, and a few other fall items. We even added little accents to our fall decor to bring it more into the season with Halloween coming up in a few weeks.

Bake all things apple. You guys know I love anything and everything pumpkin spice, so it’s probably a given that I’ll be baking and shopping for those items. Another seasonal favorite of mine is apple. We went apple picking the other weekend at one of our favorites, Hartland Orchard in Markham, Virginia, and came back with a half bushel of Fuji apples, Granny Smiths, Yellow Delicious, and so many more. I can’t wait to put them to good use!

What’s on your fall bucket list?