25 Ways to Welcome Autumn: A Cozy Autumn Bucket List

What is it about autumn that makes so many of us want to run into its slightly chilly embrace?

Maybe it’s the promise of cooler evenings and cozy nights. Maybe it’s the return of familiar rituals we missed during the heat of summer. Or maybe autumn simply makes even the smallest pleasures feel worth savoring. That’s probably why an autumn bucket list can be such a fun way to dive into seasonal living, just like a child dives into a pumpkin patch.

I’ve gathered 25 of my favorite simple ways to welcome autumn, from seasonal foods and cozy rituals to little adventures and moments of noticing. Some are things to make, some are things to do and some are simply ways to pay a little more attention to the season around you.

And because I couldn’t resist turning the list into a game, there’s a free Cozy Autumn Bingo card to go with it at the end of this post. You can print it, tuck it into your planner or keep it somewhere you’ll see it throughout the season. 

Think of this autumn bucket list as inspiration rather than homework. Choose the things that sound good. Skip the ones that don’t. Do them in October instead of September. Do the same one five times if you love it. You do you because autumn is meant to be enjoyed.

If you’re looking for a little more structure as September begins, my September Seasonal Companion is also available in the Bramble & Bloom Studio shop. It’s a cozy cottage way to bring a little more intention to September without turning your life into another checklist. 

Table of Contents

Make Your Home Feel Like Autumn

The best things on an autumn bucket list don’t require a lot of money, time or planning. Sometimes welcoming the season starts with simply changing the way your home feels. You don’t have to completely redecorate; a few small changes can shift the entire feeling of a room. The goal isn’t to make your home look like an autumn display. It’s to make it feel like autumn.

Light an Autumn Candle

There is something wonderfully unnecessary about lighting a candle when the sun is still up. Do it anyway.

As summer fades, start letting your home shift into evening a little earlier than the clock says it should. Light a candle while you’re making dinner. Put one beside your evening cup of tea. Let a small flame become part of the transition between the busy part of the day and whatever comes next. And don’t feel like you need to save your “good” candles for special occasions. A Tuesday in September is an occasion.

Make a Simmer Pot

If you want your entire house to smell like you’ve been quietly preparing for autumn all day — make a simmer pot.

This is one of those wonderfully simple seasonal rituals that costs very little and makes an immediate difference. Add a few autumn ingredients to a small pot of water and let them gently simmer on the stove while the scent moves through your kitchen and into the rest of the house. Try apple slices, cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange peel, rosemary or a few sprigs of thyme. 

Eat, Drink & Savor the Season

If there is one place where autumn really announces itself, it’s the kitchen. Autumn makes us want to turn on the oven and cook something that fills the house with a smell you can follow from room to room.

Bake Something with Apples

There are few things that announce autumn quite as effectively as the smell of apples and cinnamon coming from the oven.

Apple butter, apple pie, apple crisp, apple muffins, apple cake…or something as simple as baked apples with a little butter and spice. It doesn’t have to be an ambitious weekend baking project. Even a small batch of something warm and apple-filled can make an ordinary afternoon feel decidedly more autumnal.

If you have access to fresh apples, enjoy them however they sound best — baked into something warm, sliced into oatmeal or simply eaten straight from the bag.  If you need a place to start, my Apple & Oat Crumble is an easy autumn dessert made for cool evenings. 

Try a New Soup or Stew Recipe

Soups, stews, roasted vegetables, baked grains and broths that simmer for hours all belong to the slower rhythm of autumn. Try a soup you’ve never made before. Make a stew you’ve been meaning to try. Roast a tray of vegetables until the edges caramelize. Make a pot of beans or a simple broth and let it quietly do its thing while you go about the rest of your evening.

Have Some Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie has a way of becoming available the moment autumn arrives and I am here for it! If you love pumpkin pie, make one. Buy one. Eat a slice with your afternoon coffee. Have it for breakfast the next morning. There are no rules here.

Let Yourself Go a Little Feral

This is your free space.

There are no rules, no checklist and no particular way you’re supposed to complete this square. “Feral” means whatever feels a little more wild, untamed, instinctive or gloriously unpolished to you.

Maybe it’s something you do. Maybe it’s something you stop doing. Try following a seasonal impulse. Or simply give yourself permission to ignore the usual rules for a while.

Let the season tell you what you need. Follow what feels good. And make this entirely your own.

Go Outside & Notice What Changed

You don’t need to plan a grand autumn outing to experience the season. In fact, some of the simplest ideas on this autumn bucket list start right outside your door. Sometimes the best way to welcome it is simply to go outside and pay attention. You don’t have to go far – start with whatever is outside your door. 

Take the Scenic Route

Take the long way home. Get off the main road. Walk down a street you’ve never explored or take the path that winds through the neighborhood. Then give yourself enough time to notice what’s along the way.

Look for the things that are easy to overlook: brambles, seed heads, late berries, mushrooms, fallen branches, weeds gone to seed and leaves beginning to change color. There is still so much happening outside, even as the obvious signs of summer begin to disappear.  

If you don’t have a fall market nearby or are on a tight budget, create your own little autumn market at home. Bake a loaf of bread and warm it with butter and cinnamon. Or gather some pretty leaves or fading flowers and put them under glass in a thrift-store picture frame. 

Collect Acorns

There is something deeply satisfying about finding a perfect little acorn on the ground. Collect a few on your next walk. Notice the different shapes, colors and caps. Leave plenty behind for the squirrels, birds and other creatures who actually depend on them, but bring a handful home if you’d like.

You could put them in a little bowl, use them as part of a seasonal arrangement or simply keep one on your desk as a tiny reminder of the season. Autumn is one of the few seasons that begins by giving us little gifts.  Appreciate what the season has to offer.

Find a Perfectly Red Leaf

Make this one a game. Keep your eyes open for that one impossibly red leaf — the one that looks almost too perfect to have fallen from a real tree. And when you find it, stop. Take a picture. Press it between the pages of a book. Bring it home. Or just admire it for a minute and leave it where you found it.

Not everything beautiful needs to become something else.

Sit Outside During an Autumn Sunset

Even if your outdoor space is a tiny balcony, apartment patio or front step, make a point of sitting outside at sunset. Bring a blanket. Make a drink. Leave your phone inside if you can.

Golden hour takes on a copper tint in autumn, painting even the most ordinary landscape with deeply saturated color. And the increasingly earlier sunsets give you an opportunity to actually notice. Just sit there.

Light a Bonfire — Real or Virtual

Autumn is a wonderful time to gather around a fire. If you don’t have a fire pit, a backyard or even the ability to have an actual flame outside, don’t let that stop you. Put a crackling fire video on the television. Light a candle. Make something warm to drink and enjoy.

There is something about the glow of a fire that makes an evening feel different. Take a moment and enjoy its warmth and wildness wherever you are.

Create Your Own Autumn Rituals

Ritual doesn’t have to mean anything elaborate or mystical. Sometimes it’s something you choose to do because it helps you notice where you are in the year. The best seasonal rituals are often small enough to become part of ordinary life. They give you a reason to pause, repeat something you enjoy and mark the passing of the season in your own way.

Celebrate the Harvest Moon

When the Harvest Moon rises, take a moment to notice it. You could make an evening of it with a blanket, a warm drink and a place to sit outside. Light a candle, cook dinner by moonlight or simply step outside long enough to look up.

You don’t need to create an elaborate ritual around it. Sometimes looking up is the ritual.

Put out some birdseed. Leave a shallow dish of fresh water. Hang a feeder near a window where you can watch the visitors come and go. If you have a garden, consider leaving some seed heads standing instead of clearing everything away. 

Slow Down and Savor the Moment

Start walking at dusk more often. This is where autumn really becomes itself. The air changes character. The light fades earlier. The neighborhood sounds different. Birds settle down for the evening and the first lights begin appearing in windows.

Everything feels a little more honest. You don’t have to make the walk productive. Don’t listen to a podcast or track your steps. If you have a dog, let him meander where he will (like mine does) and go along for the ride. 

Start an Herb Plant Indoors

As the outdoor growing season begins to wind down, bring a little growing indoors. A pot of basil, thyme, rosemary, mint or parsley on a sunny windowsill can keep you connected to growing things even when the garden is quiet.

There is something deeply satisfying about being able to snip a little fresh herb for dinner when most of the garden outside has gone dormant. 

Press Autumn Leaves

Choose a few leaves that catch your eye and press them somewhere you’ll find them again later. You can frame them, use them in a seasonal journal, turn them into a little piece of art or keep them tucked inside a book as a reminder of the year you found them.

And don’t worry about finding perfect specimens. A leaf with a little damage or an uneven edge can be more beautiful than one that looks like it came from a catalog. Autumn doesn’t need to be preserved perfectly to be remembered.

Embrace the Cozy

Not every autumn bucket list activity needs to involve going somewhere or making something. Eventually, autumn asks you to come inside. Not necessarily because it’s cold. Sometimes it’s simply because the light is fading earlier.  The evenings are getting longer and staying in suddenly sounds much better than going out.

This is the season for making ordinary things feel a little more special. Embrace it.

Read a Book Curled Up in a Blanket

Embrace Sweater Weather

Autumn dressing is never final. The morning may be chilly, the afternoon may be warm enough for short sleeves and by evening the wind may suddenly have opinions. 

Layer accordingly. Pull out your sweaters. Add a cardigan to your outfit. Wear wool socks. Keep a jacket in the car. Dress like the weather is unpredictable because it is.

Enjoy an Autumn Picnic

Picnics aren’t just for summer. Choose a sunny autumn afternoon and pack something simple: sandwiches, apples, cheese, crackers, a thermos of something warm. Bring a blanket and find a spot where you can watch the leaves change.

Your backyard works. So does a park, a balcony, a front step or even the floor of your living room if the weather refuses to cooperate. The point is to make a little occasion out of an ordinary meal.

Bring Home Some Mums

Mums are one of those plants that make it almost impossible to deny that autumn has arrived. Bring home a pot for the porch, balcony, patio or windowsill. Choose a color that makes you happy and don’t worry about creating a perfectly coordinated display.

Watch a Cozy Seasonal Movie or TV Show

Sometimes you don’t need to do anything at all. Put on the movie you’ve watched a dozen times (I’m looking at you Practical Magic). Start a cozy mystery. Rewatch an old favorite. 

Make popcorn. Brew some tea. Turn the lights down. Light a candle. And sink into the moment.

Stock Your Autumn Tea Cabinet

If summer had its iced tea and cold drinks, autumn gets the tea cabinet.

Make a little room for the flavors you want to reach for as the weather changes. Black tea, chai, rooibos, peppermint, ginger, cinnamon, apple or whatever makes you think of cool evenings and warm mugs.

Make This Autumn Bucket List Your Own

You don’t have to do all 25 things. You don’t even have to do most of them.

Maybe you bake the apple crumble, find a perfect red leaf and spend an entire rainy afternoon watching Practical Magic. Or you go to a craft market, start an herb on your windowsill and drink tea on the porch every evening. Maybe you do three things from this list or none of them at all.

Take the ideas that make you want to get outside, make something, cook something, wander somewhere or simply slow down. That’s what an autumn bucket list is really for: come back to the list when you need a little inspiration. Repeat your favorites as often as you like. Embrace autumn and enjoy.

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