My Embarrassing U-Turn on Autumn
Some time ago - back in 2019 in fact - I published a blog post about how much I disliked autumn. I really meant every word of it, too. I couldn’t, for the life of me, see the attraction. It was all dead leaves, a mass invasion of spiders, and too much mess if you asked me. If you’d like to know what I thought (and I didn’t hold back) you can read the post here.
So, fast forward to the present day, and I’m about to make an embarrassing admission. I’ve completely changed my mind about autumn!
Yes, you read that right. I have fallen in love with fall. What can I say?
I mean, how atmospheric is this?
It’s difficult to know what brought this change of heart around. Is it simply because I’m getting older and autumn resonates with me more because of it? (The autumn of my life and all that jazz…)
Is it because I don’t have to go out to work any longer, and it’s much easier to admire the seasons when you only go outside because you actually want to? I mean, if it’s pouring with rain, or it’s all damp and foggy and I don’t like the look of it at all, I can usually just hunker down in my upstairs office and get on with my work. When I had the day job and had to go out in it, whether I wanted to or not, it was a very different story. Working from home has definite advantages, and maybe that’s been part of the change?
But do you know what I think has really made the difference?
I’ve been enticed into loving autumn because it’s become a “thing” and there’s just no escaping it!
Have you noticed this phenomenon lately? Since when did autumn become so commercially important? The shops are full of it! I think I first realised this last year when I was browsing online and noticed lots of gorgeous autumn garlands and wreaths for sale. At first I was quite dismissive of them, but then, when I thought about it more deeply, I realised it would be quite nice to have some colourful decoration in the house to brighten up this drab time of year. So I bought a pretty, autumnal garland, complete with built-in fairly lights, and duly draped it over my mantelpiece. That was Year 1.
Now it’s Year 2 and it feels like the UK has morphed into the set of The Gilmore Girls. Maybe that’s the thing! Maybe the boom in popularity over here of The Gilmore Girls is at least partly responsible? (Yes, I’m aware that The Gilmore Girls has been out for years but I’ve only just started watching it, and to be fair, I’ve heard loads of people talking about it in recent months when few mentioned it previously. I don’t know why. Is it a new arrival on Netflix UK or something?)
Everywhere you look it’s pumpkin spice lattes, and autumn foliage made into decorative displays, and buildings decorated in autumn colours, and cosy, cosy, cosy all around!
Maybe, in a way, it was inevitable. Halloween never used to be a big deal in the UK, but look at us now! We’re as Halloween obsessed as the US - or nearly. Trick or treating is a thing now. It certainly wasn’t when I was a kid. The shops are full to bursting with Halloween merchandise. People throw extravagant, fancy dress Halloween parties, for goodness’ sake.
So I guess the celebrations have extended out to either side of October 31st and now encompass the entire season. There are endless YouTube videos about autumn/fall. Attractive, young people snuggle on their sofas, pumpkin spice latte in hand, cosy blanket draped around them, to tell us about their favourite autumn reads, and show us their autumnal merchandise. It’s possibly an extension of the hygge craze that started a few years ago.
Interesting fact:
“We typically think of ‘fall’ as the North American version of the word ‘autumn’, but it was in fact in widespread usage in England until relatively recently.
Originally a shortening of the phrase fall of the leaf, the phrase was common in England in the 17th century.
The word autumn entered English from the French automne and didn’t become common usage until the 18th century.”
If you watched my YouTube video “An Expensive and Frustrating Week” you’ll know that a few weeks ago, I paid a visit to Home Bargains, and was entirely swept away by the Halloween/Autumn stuff in stock. But I didn’t buy anything like the amount some people do. It must be boom time for the shops and manufacturers. They’ve added another special occasion to their calendar, and it lasts an entire three months!
One of my autumn purchases - like I didn’t have enough mugs already…
If I sound cynical it’s because I am. Like Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween itself, autumn is becoming way too commercialised. And yet…
The thing is, as cynical as I am, I can’t deny that I’m seeing autumn in a whole new way. I mean, the colours! You can’t get away from the fact that the colours are just amazing. There’s nothing to beat a cool, autumn day, when the sun’s out and the sky is as blue as cornflowers, and you look up to the heavens and there, silhouetted against that endless blue, are the branches of the trees, clothed in all their autumnal finery - the golds, the reds, the ambers, the dark greens and the bronze. It’s enough to take your breath away.
And what’s wrong with decorating your house for autumn? We’re heading into the darker months in the northern hemisphere. The clocks have gone back. The nights are long and the days shorter. It’s a long time until the spring. It’s colder. It’s damper. It’s misty. There’s not much to look forward to except Christmas.
So why not brighten up your home with an autumn garland? Why not add some cosy blankets and cushions to your sofa, and light one of your multitude of autumnal scented candles?
Why not snuggle down with a pumpkin spice latte and watch an episode or six of The Gilmore Girls? Or read a not-too-scary book for Halloween, or a cosy autumnal romance?
Yes, I think most of us can see that we’re being played in many ways. That there’s a big opportunity for people to make money selling us the autumn dream, the way they push the perfect Christmas at us. Or the romance of Valentine’s Day. Or all that chocolate at Easter. But if it makes people happy, does it really matter?
My only concern is that not everyone can afford to splash out on decorating their homes for all these different occasions, and we should be really careful to focus more on what they mean, rather than worrying about the latest must-have cushions or if we can afford another month’s subscription to Netflix.
Autumn to me used to mean death and decay. It depressed me, to be honest. All I could think about was all the leaves falling to the ground to be trodden on, leaving piles of mulch on the pavements and bare branches above them. I thought of grey skies and heavy mist and drizzly rain and dark nights and gloom.
My favourite kind of day.
But now I see autumn in a different way, and it’s not because I can stick a garland on a mantelpiece. It’s because I’ve realised that autumn is a time when nature prepares itself for a long winter, and that maybe we should do the same.
It’s the season of rest and readiness. The harvests are in. The leaves may have fallen but there will be new ones in the spring. The evenings may grow dark earlier, but the light nights will come again. It’s about accepting change, realising that nothing lasts forever. It teaches us to let go.
Remembering the Harvest Festivals I celebrated when I was at school, I think about the hymns we used to sing, how the service taught us to be grateful for the safe gathering in of the harvest, remember everything we’d been given over the course of the year, and trust that we would see our way through the dark winter months and back to the light again.
I don’t know about the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, but it’s definitely the season of thanksgiving and gratitude.
So yes, I’m looking at autumn through different eyes now, and I’m happy to embrace the colder, darker evenings, and prepare to hunker down for the winter, books to hand, blanket on the sofa, a pumpkin spice plug-in air freshener on the go.
(I might give the pumpkin spice lattes a miss though. I tried one recently and it wasn’t exactly the nicest drink I’ve ever had.)
As for the invasion of the spiders - sorry, but nothing will persuade me that’s ever a good thing…
Have a great week!
