Welcome, cozy friends!

If you’d prefer to listen to this discussion, you can check out the full episode on The Bookmarks ‘n Blankets Podcast on your favorite podcast platform or listen below.

Let me know what you enjoy doing to celebrate this gorgeous, cozy time of year on Instagram or X (aka Twitter). I’d love to hear from you!

If you know me or have listened to a few of my recent episodes, then you know that I’m absolutely obsessed with this time of year and fall is my favorite season. I adore these last three months of the year. It just feels like such a magical time – the weather and seasons are changing, we celebrate three big holidays back to back, and it just feels cozier. 

I’ve mentioned her before, but one of my favorite YouTuber vloggers, who also posts bookish content, Darling Desi, made a video a few years ago that I recently watched when I was looking through her backlog that inspired this episode. She answered questions from her following about fall and Halloween because it’s also her favorite time of year. While my following is teeny tiny compared to hers and I don’t have submitted questions from anyone, I thought I would answer the same questions that she answered in her video. Since it’s my favorite time of year, I thought it would be fun to answer these, so my listeners/readers can get to know me better. I’ve also made up a few of my own questions to add to this list, and at the end, I thought it would be fun to do a quick, rapid-fire round of Would You Rather (or This or That) that I found online. 

For this episode, I made a cute graphic for the Would You Rather section, and I’ve posted it below. So if you want to download it and use it for your social networks, please feel free to just go to the bottom of this post, right-click on it, and save it. Then you can upload to whatever graphic design platform you use, like Canva, or take a screenshot with your phone or mobile device, and play along with me by choosing your favorites. I thought that would be a fun interactive element for my listeners/readers.

Fall Q&A

What is your ideal cozy fall weather?

My favorite fall weather is in the mid-50s when I can cozy up with a fuzzy blanket and sip on hot tea while I either read a book or watch a spooky movie.

Which town gives you cozy fall vibes?

I’ve lived in many towns in Ohio, California, and Colorado. But the coziest would have to be Colorado Springs. The fall season in Colorado doesn’t last long, but when it is fall, the air gets cool and crisp, and the leaves turn beautiful colors. Whenever driving around town, you see the mountains in the distance. There’s just a cozy vibe to the city. It’s the second-largest city in the state but has that small town feel.

What is a fall activity that you must do every year?

Every year is different, but I decorate the house with the few fall decorations that I have. I also attempt to drive around town to view the changing leaves, but some years that doesn’t happen.

I always indulge in some fall treats every year, sipping on seasonal coffees, teas, and apple cider. I love the combination of apple cider and powdered donuts (weird, I know), but it’s nostalgic of my childhood. I love pumpkin and apple breads, muffins, cookies, etc. It’s also soup season, so I definitely eat a lot more during this time of year. Sometimes, I make my own soup or chili, but mostly, I just buy more soup in the fall and winter.

I also always watch a lot of spooky movies, both scary and non-scary Halloween movies.

Where is your top autumnal travel destination?

One thing on my bucket list is to travel to the New England area during autumn to see the leaves and maybe attend some fall festivals. That would be a fun trip. I’ve never been to that part of the U.S., and I really want to take a trip there. I’m sure it would be super busy, but I also think it would be fun to visit Salem, MA during this time of year, and see the old, historic homes and buildings from the Salem witch trials.

What is your favorite autumn beverage?

I am a pretty big fan of pumpkin spice lattes, but I love chai tea. This year, I tried Starbucks’ pumpkin cream chai latte and fell in love. I also love boba milk tea. Kung Fu Tea is my favorite boba shop, and while they didn’t have it this year, in the past, they had an amazingly delicious pumpkin spice milk tea with boba.

At home, I prefer hot tea over hot coffee. I love the brands, Republic of Tea and Celestial Seasonings. Celestial Seasonings has an almond tea that I love to drink hot with milk and stevia. They also have a cinnamon apple tea that tastes good hot and caramel apple tea, but I also like to heat up some apple cider. They also have a yummy Sweet Harvest Pumpkin tea. I also love Tazo’s pumpkin spice latte concentrate.

What is your favorite autumnal scent? 

I don’t own a lot of candles, and while I do love the smell of pumpkin and pumpkin spice or cinnamon apple, I use essential oils in my diffuser. My favorite blend during this time of year is cinnamon, ginger, clove, and orange. It smells so warm and comforting.

Halloween Q&A

Have you ever visited a spooky haunted location in the U.S.? Which other locations do you still want to visit?

I’ve actually been to a few haunted locations in my lifetime:

• Athens, OH – The Ridges, Ohio University: West Green, Wilson Hall, and The Convocation Center
• San Diego, CA – The Whaley House in Old Town San Diego, Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island
• Colorado – The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park
• Laramie, Wyoming – Laramie Prison

I don’t have a running list of most haunted places that I want to visit, but if I were ever in an area with known haunted locations, I would check them out.

Have you ever experienced paranormal activity?

I’m not sure. When I was in my early twenties, I had moved back home after college, and I remember one night, I was just dozing off when I felt something brush my knee. The door to my bedroom was closed and the window wasn’t open. It could’ve been air from a vent, but it felt like fingertips on my leg. And I remember groggily waking up and telling my deceased mom to quit bothering me because I was sleeping. Then once my brain registered what I just said, I completely woke up and smelled my mom’s perfume in my bedroom. No one was there and the sensation disappeared, but that always stuck with me. I’d like to think my mom doesn’t have any unfinished business to become a spirit stuck in our world and that she’s moved on to heaven, but that was a really weird experience. Over the years, I’ve just chalked it up to me just being in a really sleepy, groggy state and it may have been a dream. But it did feel real.

Have you ever been ghost hunting? If not, would you?

No, I’ve never been ghost hunting, but it sounds rather intriguing. The brave, adventurous part of me wants to say yes, I would go ghost hunting. But the logical, scardy-cat part of me would probably chicken out when we pulled up to the haunted location.

Which scary movies do you watch every autumn?

I am going to be recording and publishing two episodes where I talk about my favorite 25 non-scary movies and scary movies for Halloween. So stay tuned!

What is your favorite Tim Burton movie?

Beetlejuice – 1988

What is your favorite spooky or Halloween TV series to watch? 

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. True Blood
3. Bates Motel
4. iZombie
5. American Horror Story
6. The Haunting of Hill House
7. Ghosts – BBC version
8. Halloween Baking Championship
9. Outrageous Pumpkins
10. Halloween Wars

Who is your favorite spooky being or creature?

It’s really a toss-up between witches and vampires. I’ve read many good books with witches in them, but have yet to read a good vampire book. However, I think vampire movies and TV series are better than witch movies and series. 

If you could go trick-or-treating in a fictional world, which would you pick?

Harry Potter Universe

What is your favorite Halloween candy?

As a kid, I was not a big fan of chocolate, so I preferred the suckers, gummy candy, hard tack candy, Twizzlers, taffy…things of that nature. But as an adult, give me all the chocolate. My favorites are Snickers, Reese’s Sticks and Take Five, and Twix.

What are your favorite Halloween traditions(s) to do on Halloween Day?

Since we don’t have kids to go trick or treating, and we don’t hand out handy, every year it’s different, but we always watch a scary movie. Some years, I’ll make a big batch of my homemade Creamy Cheesy Sausage Potato Kale soup and hubby will make apple crisp. Other years, I’ve made chili or we just order a pizza. (Grab some of my personal recipes here.)

During the day, I try to take it easy and not work very much so I can watch a marathon of my favorite non-scary movies, like Charlie Brown the Great Pumpkin, Hocus Pocus, High Spirits, or Ghostbusters. Then when it gets dark, we watch a scary movie. For a few years, our tradition was to watch Trick or Treat, but it’s changed over time. It’s really whatever we’re in the mood for or if we want to check out a new horror movie. We try to buy some Halloween candy to eat with other snacks, but the best time to buy Halloween candy is the day after because it’s hugely discounted. One year, we went to three or four different stores and got 50% – 80% off bags of candy. We weren’t paying attention to how much we were buying and when we got home, we found out that we bought 10 pounds of candy! I felt a little ashamed, but we were stocked for months and months from that haul. Plus, we didn’t eat it all. We ended up throwing about a quarter of it away.

Would You Rather…

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