Written by Mark Bailey
The lights go off at the field, the World Series wraps up, and the weekends between mid-October and Thanksgiving are suddenly wide open.
This is a baseball site, and the end of the season is exactly when the family calendar goes blank. Most fall lists are written for September, when the leaves are perfect and it’s still light at dinner.
We’ve stared at enough empty November Saturdays to know which ideas still work after peak color and after the clocks change. One of them only gets good once it’s dark before dinner on a school night.
1. Chase the Last of the Leaves
Peak color doesn’t happen everywhere at once.
It usually moves north to south and from the mountaintops down into the valleys, so the Mid-Atlantic tends to peak in mid to late October and the southern Appalachians can hold color into early November. A given spot usually stays at peak for about a week and the weather can shift that by several days, so check a foliage map the morning you go and drive toward the color.
2. Make a Late Orchard Run for Cider and Seconds
Call ahead first, since plenty of orchards wind down pick-your-own by late October.
The farm store is the better stop this late anyway. Ask for a half-bushel bag of seconds, the bruised and odd-shaped apples that work fine for sauce and baking, and grab a jug of cider for the ride home.
3. Host a World Series Watch Night
This year’s World Series starts Friday, October 23, on Fox.
It’s a best-of-seven, and if it goes the full seven, the last game lands on Saturday, October 31. That’s Halloween, which is either a scheduling problem or the best party of the year.
Pick one game, put out hot dogs, soft pretzels and peanuts in the shell, and let the non-fans come for the food.
4. Roast the Pumpkin Seeds Instead of Tossing Them
Carving gets all the attention, and the seeds usually go out with the newspaper.
Rinse them in a colander, then spread them on a clean dish towel and let them dry completely before they go near the oven. Use a cloth towel, because they stick to paper ones.
Drying is the step people rush, and it’s why their seeds come out chewy. Ours got better the year we stopped hurrying it.
5. Take a Hunter’s Moon Walk
October’s full moon is called the Hunter’s Moon, and this year it turns full at 12:11 a.m. Eastern on October 26.
That makes the night of Sunday, October 25 into the 26th the one to be outside. It isn’t a supermoon this year, and it doesn’t need to be.
Walk a loop you already know, keep the flashlight in a pocket, and give everybody’s eyes a few minutes to adjust. It costs nothing.
6. Play Wiffle Ball in the Leaves
A plastic bat and ball set is about the cheapest fun you can keep in a garage.
Rake four piles for the bases and a big one behind home plate. Sliding into a leaf pile is the whole point, a grandparent can pitch from a lawn chair, and nobody keeps score past the third inning.
7. Use a Free National Park Day
Two entrance-fee-free days are left on the National Park Service calendar this year: October 27 and November 11.
The first is a Tuesday. The second is Veterans Day, a Wednesday, which makes it the realistic pick for families where school is out.
The waiver covers entrance fees only, and as of this year it applies to US citizens and residents. Check whether your nearest park charges an entrance fee in the first place, and whether it needs a timed reservation.
8. Turn Raking Into a Leaf Pile Afternoon
We tried assigning raking as a chore one fall, and it lasted about twenty minutes before everyone drifted inside.
The next weekend we raked the whole yard into one enormous pile and called it an activity. It took most of the afternoon, the yard got done, and the only cost was raking the pile back together twice.
A big tarp makes the hauling easier.
9. Sort the Shoebox of Baseball Cards
If there’s a baseball fan in the house, there’s probably a shoebox of cards in a closet that nobody has opened in years.
A rainy Saturday, a three-ring binder and a pack of nine-pocket pages will take care of it. Sort by team or by decade, and expect it to take twice as long as planned because every third card starts a story.
Don’t go in hoping for a fortune.
10. Start a Sunday Soup Rotation
I’ll take a position here: soup beats chili as the cold-weather Sunday meal.
Chili is one recipe, and everyone already has opinions about it. Soup gives you a different pot every week, so each person in the house picks one Sunday between now and Thanksgiving.
A big enameled Dutch oven earns its cabinet space with this one, and the pickiest eater tends to complain less on the week they chose.
11. Count the Birds at the Feeder
Project FeederWatch is a backyard bird count that starts in November and runs through April.
It’s run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada, and it costs about $18 a year in the US. You don’t need a feeder to join, just a spot where you like to watch birds, and you can count as often or as little as you want.
It suits a grandparent and a kid with a window and a notebook.
12. Run a Baseball Movie Month
Pick one night a week in November and work through the classics.
The Sandlot, A League of Their Own, Field of Dreams and Rookie of the Year make a solid four-week lineup, and popcorn in paper bags is all the setup it needs. For anyone who wants the deep end, Ken Burns’ Baseball runs nine parts of roughly two hours each, so check the library for the DVD set.
13. Light the Fire Pit After the Clocks Change
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1 this year, and sunset jumps an hour earlier overnight (most of Arizona and all of Hawaii skip the change).
Plenty of people treat that as the end of outdoor evenings. We think it’s the start of fire pit season, because a fire at dinnertime on a school night is far more doable than one at 9 p.m. in July.
Follow your local burn rules, bring blankets, and call it after an hour.
14. Do a Library Haul and a Puzzle Table
Set up a card table in a corner and leave a 1,000-piece puzzle on it for the month.
Nobody has to sit down and finish it. People wander by, place three pieces and leave, which is how it should work.
Pair it with a library trip where everyone checks out a stack, and the house has something free to do on every dark evening.
15. Tour a Ballpark While It’s Empty
A ballpark with nobody in it is a different place, and the off-season is when you get to see one.
Many parks run tours once the games stop, so check your nearest one. Fenway Park, for example, offers public tours year-round.
If a road trip is on the table, the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day this time of year except Thanksgiving. Admission is about $35 for adults, and kids 6 and under are free.
16. Skip the Big Fall Festival, Find a Small Farm Stand
Every fall list sends you to the giant festival with the corn maze, the hayride and the parking field.
We’d skip it. In our experience the day turns into lines and a long walk from the car, and per-person tickets add up fast for a family.
A small roadside farm stand has pumpkins and cider too, and you’re home by lunch.
17. Stay Up for the Geminids
The meteor shower worth staying up for comes late, on the night of December 13 into the 14th, which still counts as fall.
The October and November showers are smaller and best before dawn, and this year a bright moon washes out most of them.
The Geminids are visible all night, with up to 75 meteors an hour under dark skies and only a thin crescent moon this year. It’s a Sunday night, so plan on sleeping bags, cocoa and a slow Monday.
18. Fill Out a Family Awards Ballot
Baseball’s big individual awards roll out over the second week of November.
While the World Series is still on, write up a one-page ballot with a line for each award and have everyone in the house make a pick. Choosing by best name is allowed.
Stick it on the fridge. Within about two weeks of the last game you’ll have a winner, and the prize can be picking the next takeout order.
19. Bake a Practice Pie Before Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving morning is a bad time to learn a new crust.
Pick a weekend two or three weeks out and bake the pie you plan to bring, start to finish. You’ll find out whether your pie plate runs deep, how long the crust takes you, and whether the recipe is worth repeating.
Worst case, the family eats a lopsided pie in early November.
20. Start a Standing Game Night
Pick one night, keep it the same every week, and hold it until the new year.
The standing part matters more than the game. A deck of cards and a set of dice cover every age at the table, and 45 minutes is plenty.
Once it’s on the calendar nobody has to plan anything, which is why this is the one that tends to survive into December.
Put Two on the Calendar Tonight
Open fall weekends don’t stay open. Pick two things from this list and put dates on them before the clocks change on November 1.
The dated ones make it easy, since the moon, the park days and the meteor shower won’t wait for a free afternoon. Everything else fits in around them.