Romanticizing a Fall Evening in August (For the Girlies Who Are Mentally in October)

I checked the weather app this morning out of habit, saw the triple digits, and closed it immediately, the way you’d hang up on a phone call you already know is bad news. It’s a hundred degrees outside. It’s autumn in my heart. I have made peace with the gap between those two facts, and honestly, I think the gap is where all the fun is. If you, too, are mentally somewhere around the second week of October while your actual thermostat disagrees, this one’s for you.

Build a mood board! Spend some time pulling together whatever’s actually inspiring you about the season this year. Don’t go for a generic “fall aesthetic,” but your specific fall. Maybe it’s a color palette, maybe it’s a list of things you want to do before December (a corn maze you’ve never been to, a soup recipe you keep meaning to try, a book you’ve been saving). I find the mood board matters more than people give it credit for. It turns “I want fall to hurry up” into an actual plan, which is a much more satisfying place to be stuck.

Decorate early. It’s your house/room!! Nobody is enforcing a decor calendar. If you want string lights and a stack of little gourds on your counter in the first week of August, do it; the only authority who could possibly object is some imaginary seasonal HOA that doesn’t exist. This is one of the more underrated forms of free will available to a person on a Tuesday.

Light something that’s part of a bigger story. This is where I get a little precious about it. My own autumn candles are 100% soy wax, hand-poured, and each candle comes with its own tarot card tucked inside, one with layered meanings, plus a TTRPG roleplay card on the back offering up an item, an event, or an encounter you can drop straight into a game session. Every candle I make is part of a larger story; the autumn line just happens to tell it through tarot, while the rest of the collection lives inside one continuous universe. Lighting one is a small ritual with its own little narrative attached, which feels exactly right for a season that’s always been about storytelling to me.

Bake something with apple in it, because pumpkin’s not playing along just yet. Pumpkin spice everything tends to lag a few weeks behind the actual desire for it, so lean on apple and cinnamon in the meantime, as they carry almost the exact same emotional weight and your grocery store already has them in stock. An apple crumble, apple cider donuts if you’re ambitious, even just apple slices with cinnamon and a little brown sugar microwaved into something warm. The smell alone does most of the work.

Get a coloring book and let your brain idle for a while! This one surprised me. I picked up a fall-themed coloring book on a whim last year expecting to use it twice, and instead it became a genuine before-bed ritual, something to do with my hands that isn’t a screen, paired with a rain-sound playlist or a crackling-fire ambience video in the background. It’s meditative in a way that’s hard to explain until you’ve tried it. Ten minutes of coloring does more for winding down than twenty minutes of scrolling ever has for me. You can even print out your own pages for a way cheaper/more accessible option!

Have a spooky-but-soft movie night. Coraline is the perfect anchor for this imo, as it’s eerie enough to feel seasonal, gentle enough to still be a cozy night in. It doesn’t HAVE to only be watched in October. Ima be honest- anything by Guillermo del Toro is perfect. Have a Nosferatu marathon from the 1930s version onwards! Build the whole evening around it: matching pajamas if you’re hosting people, blankets everywhere, the specific kind of snack spread that only makes sense after dark. Which brings me to—

Snacks that split the difference between sweet and salty. Hot cocoa in the biggest mug you own, popcorn and peanut M&M’s mixed in the same bowl, something salty enough to justify the sweet thing right next to it. Fall snacking, done right, is really just an argument between two cravings that both get to win.

Let ambience do some of the reading for you. If you’re curling up with a book, put something on in the background, rain, a distant fireplace, a low café hum, even if what’s actually happening outside your window is cicadas and heat shimmer. It’s a cheap trick and it works every time. Here are some of my favorites:

Hogwarts Autumn 🍂 Hagrid’s Hut ◈ Harry Potter inspired Ambience / Falling Leaves + Rain showers
I love this because it’s made with real people/sounds! For autumn lovers 🍁 Cozy fall cottage kitchen | Cooking ASMR 2-hour compilation 🍁 fireplace, rain
I LOVE oldies! distant vintage oldies playing in another room on a calm 1940s autumn night (w/ cricket sounds)
Classic, good nighttime sounds FALL PORCH AMBIENCE: Cozy Nighttime Autumn Sounds, Crunchy Leaves, Nature Sounds
Definitely more of a vaporwave//80s music vibe but still good! AUTUMN WEATHER CHANNEL VAPORWAVE 1989 // Nostalgic Vaporwave & VHS Aesthetics
(This music is actually scary imo- check out their channel everything is awesome and no AI!) Halloween at Hogwarts (1 hour Harry Potter music mix) Spooky/witchy music [no repetition]

Get your people together and lean into the theme. This is the one I didn’t expect to love as much as I do: a proper game night with a horror or mystery bent. Curse of Strahd if your friend group is into tabletop campaigns, Betrayal at House on the Hill if you want something spookier in one sitting, or just a dressed-up round of Clue turned into an actual murder mystery party, costumes and all.

If you’re the one running the session, keep a candle burning at the table! The TTRPG card tucked into the back of each of mine is built for exactly this, a ready-made item, event, or encounter you can pull out mid-session to throw your party a curveball. It’s less about the specific game and more about giving everyone a reason to be a little theatrical together.

Declare the season open whenever YOU want!! Mine starts the first week of August. Yours can start whenever it wants to. There’s no committee that approves this, no calendar that overrules it, just the specific, slightly ridiculous joy of deciding, on your own terms, that fall has arrived. Happy fall to everyone who’s already there with me!