Growing up, fall was about family, friends and stubbornly staying outside while the streetlights gradually came on early and the weather inevitably got colder. These days, priorities make it harder to enjoy the season as we should. Features Editor Colleen Connolly gathers students’ favourite fall past times and suggests ways to integrate them into Laurier living.
“Me and my family would go to a pumpkin patch and we’d each get to pick a pumpkin, it could be any size we wanted. Then we’d go home and draw on them, my dad would carve them out and we’d scoop out all the seeds and cook them. Then we’d just sit around the kitchen table pigging out.”
-Brynn Ferreira, second year
“I think that what I miss most about growing up, besides Halloween because you can’t go out trick or treating anymore because we’re too old for that, was carving pumpkins. I think that would be so much fun to do with all my university friends… I do jack skeleton really well.”
-Amelia Rose, second-year
“My aunt would always make us a Halloween super before all the kids would come. So she’d like decorate the kitchen, she’d make what she called creepy jello and put like, worms, eyeballs and everything into it… cranberry juice for blood and stuff.”
-Jillian Marquardt, fifth year
“Looking to get costumes. Now it’s like girls are striving to be sluts but before when we were in elementary school it was about who had the most legit costume. Like I remember one year a guy was Tucan Sam. I was like, ‘where did you find a costume like that?’”
-Emma Conway, firstyear
“Me and my parents, when I was younger, we always used to go a little bit up north and we’d take pictures when the leaves were really red, orange and yellow. You’d always get good pictures out of it and it was always a good time… It was the most Asian thing, you know the typical touristy thing. Except that we live here and we do it every year. They’d develop it, throw it in a little album and show people who weren’t from Canada.”
-Emmanuel Santillan, second year
“My friend and I, for the past couple of years on Halloween, we made a haunted house in his backyard. It was free to go in, people would walk around and we’d just have fun scaring the crap out of everybody.”
-Geo Miller, first year
“I always made pies with my mom, she just started teaching me… they’re homemade so she makes the crust from scratch.”
-Jocelyn Bovay, second year
“I’m in cross country so I’m always running during the fall… the fall is really good outdoor running in the woods time, it’s nice and chill.”
-Tom Daly, first year
“Picking the pumpkins from the pumpkin patches. My family used to do that and we’d try to get the biggest pumpkin.”
-Erik Daroczi, first-year
“Fall time strolls… grab a coffee, pumpkin spice latte or something, and just go on a walk.”
-Mawadda Basir, first year
“As a kid I’d always rake the leaves with my dad. We had a huge tree in our backyard and we’d always jump in the huge pile. We’d wait until all the leaves fell and then do it.”
-Jocelyn Bovay, second year
“I like going to the cottage in the fall. All the leaves and stuff, it’s so much different than being there in the summer and so much quieter too.”
-Graham Bennett, third year
“You know what sucked [when trick or treating]? When someone would give you like, fruit. You were like ‘well, okay. Eff you too.’”
-Emma Conway, first year
“I used to go apple picking with my family… and going to the farmers market and stuff like that.”
-Tara Zimmerman, third year
“You know its fall when Starbucks has their pumpkin spice lattes.”
-Christiana Wood, first year
“Nothing beats sitting on your couch with your family pretending to be a witch and watching Hocus Pocus. This thanksgiving I’m bringing university home with me and having a thanksgiving beer pong tourney with grams and gramps.”
-Emily Snowball, third year
“I like Thanksgiving and getting together with my family. Pumpkin pie, turkey and just hanging out with family that I don’t get to see very often.”
-Nicole Favell, second year
“My favorite part is definitely football with the family.”
-Marcia Figueredo, first year
“Chuddleys, it’s an apple farm… apple picking, farm animals, hay stuff. They have Halloween stuff too.”
-Andreea Fatu, first year
“Buying a lot of sweaters. I love wearing sweaters… just the fall apparel, love that.”
-Mridul Haque, first year
“I would collect leaves and put them in a scrapbook and then I used to label what each leaf was, where I got it and what it reminded me of. I was like six.”
-Ashley Pellegrno, first year
“Those farms where they have those corn mazes and you go on haystack rides, that’s what I did.”
-Kayla Kandzorra, first year
“Candy apples, candy corn… fall colors. The air seems crisp, you breathe better I find.”
-Jillian Marquardt, fifth year
“I’m from Hunstville so we have lakes everywhere. We’d always go canoeing on thanksgiving.”
-Keelin Pringnitz, second year
“I live in the city. We just eat turkey.”
-Leighanne Rathwell, third year
“Crunchy leaves. I go out of my way to step on them, on the sidewalk.”
-Lizz Hawtin, first year
“I like husking the corn for dinner.”
-Danica Brett , first year
Keeping the Traditions Alive
Get some friends together for a game of football at alumni field
Cook up a turkey dinner with roommates
Take a walk through Waterloo Park on a sunny afternoon
Plan a trip to St. Jacobs County for the weekly farmer’s market
Buy pumpkins from a local grocery store and carve them with a group of friends
Enjoy a Sommersby apple cider at Wilfs
Buy a few bags o Halloween candy and host a horror movie night
Coordinate with friends and make costumes together