The Beginning
It’s been over a decade now since my family started celebrating Fall Craft Sundays. It began humbly enough: gathering all five kids, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, around the table for a seasonally inspired dinner and dessert accompanied by an autumnal craft every Sunday from September through October. At this point in our lives we were living in Tennessee, where our oldest two children were raised and our three youngest were born. Every year when Fall would roll around I found myself feeling a bit extra homesick, missing the crispness and beauty of Fall that I had grown up with farther north and, because I love Fall so very much, wanting to pull everyone closer and celebrate our time together in my favorite season. In the same way that in the fall months you start to feel the year slipping away, I was keenly aware that our time together in one place as a large, growing family was also nearing its end. My stepson and stepdaughter, our oldest, were finishing their educations and making plans for their respective futures and frankly I was grasping at anything to hold us together for just a little longer. So I gathered a few fall craft ideas, planned a fall menu, coordinated a trip to our favorite local pumpkin patch and petting farm, and sent out the schedule. The first Fall Craft Sundays were born.
Over the years our schedule grew to include most of September, October, and November. We added Halloween crafts and as the little kids got older started a tradition of “scary” movies after dinner and crafts. Boyfriends and girlfriends and then fiances and eventually spouses started joining in. These were my favorite days of the year, every year. I knew that everyone would show up on these days, no matter what the family might be going through or how busy we were. They would come. They started asking weeks- sometimes months- before it was time, what the schedule would be. What’s on the menu? What crafts are we going to do? Savannah, especially, would gather ideas throughout the year to suggest. It’s become a tradition in itself to unbox past years’ crafts to set out as this year’s decorations.
Thirteen years later, spread out from one end of the country to the other, Fall Craft Sundays are still celebrated in each family’s own way. There are grandchildren that now watch designated movies each year and make handprint leaf crafts that are mailed across the states to Grumps and Gigi to hang on the fridge for the season. We are still making modified versions of old family recipes that remind us of the days seven of us squished around a table filled with piles of acorns and paints, string, glue, fabric or yarn scraps, pinecones, whatever the medium of the day was. Sometimes now I am alone on these days to watch a favorite fall movie or make a special dinner for just the two of us and work on my own fall project. Or maybe one or two very big kids come over to surprise me for a Fall Craft Sunday, knowing that there will be a favorite meal to eat and a craft ready to make. My hope is that every Fall they will remember how happy and inspiring it felt to be together as a family for the season.
I frequently had passing thoughts that Fall Craft Sundays would make a great book, full of recipes, craft tutorials, stories, photos, and ideas of traditions for others to adopt. But mostly a scrapbook of memories for my family and extended family to look back on.
Given the current state of our country with a global pandemic it seems like the perfect time to extend this special tradition with others in hopes that it will bring you closer to your family as it continues to bring our family together.
