I’m of the firm belief that all work and no play on the homestead makes us dull and exhausted! Put down the garden spade, ignore the squawking chickens for a few hours, and come join me for a bit of whimsy with homestead holidays in October!
If you’ve been a reader for awhile, then you know that I’m a big believer in the power of wholesome traditions and the role they play in successful family life. Successful families create successful homesteads, so for me, this is no small matter.
Even if you don’t have a biological family of your own yet, you have friends and neighbors who feel like family. That’s all you need to begin!
Articles for Further Reading:
5 Ways to Improve the Family Dinner Hour
Holiday Organization: Decoration & Craft Stash Cabinet
Building Family Traditions on the Homestead
The Right to NOT Celebrate Holidays in October
All throughout my book, Homestead Holidays, I remind the reader as gently as I can that you’re in no way obligated to celebrate anything you don’t want to celebrate.
Some people struggle with integrating holidays into their homesteading lives because they keenly feel the pressure to get through their daily to-do list. They feel the pressure of time!
Others of us are struggling against a family culture that doesn’t naturally observe these days. Either the parents didn’t enjoy much in the way of traditions growing up, or it simply hasn’t entered the current family experience.
Sometimes, we run into cultural or religious clashes where we profoundly object to the holiday celebrations of another. (Remember, I mentioned Halloween?)
- All of that is ok to feel!
What I feel is unacceptable is to simply throw up our hands and settle for a boring or drugery-filled month to month experience. There’s so much joy to be had, even amidst all the work of homesteading!
Building a happy family life takes so much more effort and focus that it ever has before. Forgive me a soapbox moment, but our society has become far more secular and self-absorbed than is healthy.
We need to cultivate moments that feed the soul of the family, as well as cultivate carrots to feed the body of the family. Both are important!
- However, you find the holidays, traditions, feast days, service projects, craft ideas, and recipes that best suit your tribe. To do this, try out a bunch of ideas that might be new to you, alongside old favorites that bring comfort.
To help you get organized, decide which holidays you’d like to celebrate, and fill your planner with easy-to-fill worksheets, join our newsletter family and receive our Holiday Help Worksheets for free. When you join the newsletter list, you’ll get access to a huge library of free resources, including several other holiday workbooks.
Homestead Holidays in October
Ok, enough chit chat! Here are our suggested holidays or special days to celebrate on the homestead with family and friends. These holidays are specific to October, but you will eventually find an article like this for every month of the year.
It’s important to enjoy each month that comes to us, and not skip over anything in anticipation of the next big thing. Like ignoring the joys of October so we can prematurely stress about all their is to do in November and December.
Get some chill. October can help with that.
National Holidays in October
Here are a few homestead related national holidays in October that are homestead-related. As I remind the reader in Homestead Holidays, for the busy homesteader, it’s important to integrate these special days into our already busy schedule.
- We MUST stop to have fun and enjoy time together, but that doesn’t mean the works stops! My goal is to help us all incorporate our holidays into our everyday.
National Pumpkin Seed Day
Celebrated on the first Wednesday in October, this day is worth a note on your calendar if for no other reason than that it will help you remember to use up the pumpkin seeds from your harvest this year.
Pumpkin seeds are an important crops for:
Animal Feed – there’s folk wisdom that indicates that pumpkin seeds are effective as a natural wormer in livestock. Contemporary medicine rejects this idea as false, so it’s up to you to do your own homework.
either way, pumpkin seeds are easy to toss into your livestock’s health supplement ration, especially if you grow the pumpkins yourself!
- Either harvest and dry the seeds for use throughout the year, or feed your livestock the pumpkins whole but split open.
Human Feed – regardless of their potential medicinal properties, pumpkin seeds do contain protein, unsaturated fats, and antioxidants. They make a great potato or salad topping! You can also simply enjoy pumpkin seeds roasted for an iconic fall snack.
Seed Saving – to save money on seed stock for the garden every year, learn to harvest your own seeds for continual planting. Saving seed from the pumpkin family does take some work, so be sure to read up to learn how to do it correctly.
- Home for the Harvest can teach you how to properly select plants, pollinate them, and harvest pumpkin seed for replanting.
- A Modern Homestead can teach you or improve your skills on growing pumpkins from seed.
- If you’re a new gardener, you might find this article from Creative Vegetable Gardner on how to water pumpkins useful.
Celebrate National Pumpkin Seed Day
The easiest way to mark this day is to carve pumpkins! Even if you’re not someone who celebrates Halloween (the day we traditionally carve pumpkins, or turnips if you’re Irish), this can still be a fun activity.
Traditionally, turnips were carved with scary faces to chase away any evil spirits who might be walking the fine line between this world and the next as this time of year.
However, you can carve silly faces or even words! The key is to open up your pumkin to havest the seeds in a fun way.
Pumpkin Smashing Contest
If you don’t feel like carving, how about smashing “contest”? Here’s how:
- Select the pumpkin you want to harvest for seed replanting and note its information in your garden journal. Be sure to include the variety, date of seed harvest, and any other thing you want to remember.
- Have each member of your family do the same.
- Line up along a balcony, deck, or series of secure ladders. Be sure everyone is steady!
- Drop your pumpkins at the exact same time and see which one hits the ground first*.
- Also note which pumpkin smashes the best and makes the most mess. You can also note the best color of the pumpkin flesh, the biggest seeds, and the loudest smash sound.
This is a whimsical way to get your pumpkins while saving your hands the hardship of carving!
- For printable instructions for your homeschool group, see the bottom of the post.
*Since gravity adjusts pull to customize force for each object, the pumpkins will all hit the ground at the same time if they’re released at the same time.
Things to Note:
- Be sure you’re far enough away from each other that the seeds won’t accidentally mix.
- Make sure the youngest in the family are watching from a secure location so they don’t get bonked by a falling pumpkin.
- Prepare to have a conversation about gravity – enjoy a teaching moment!
- After you’ve harvested the seeds from each pumpkin, toss the remnants into your livestock trough or the compost pile. You can also feed wildlife with pumpkin flesh, too.
If you end up busy that first Wednesday in October, you can combine a pumpkin seed celebration with a national pumpkin day on October 26th. See, no stress to get it done by a certain day. Don’t just “get it done”; enjoy it!
National Sweetest Day
This national observance has been going on for over 100 years! Sweetest Day is an opportunity to do small acts of random kindness for friends, family, and even strangers on the third Saturday of October.
By making Sweetest Day an annual special day for your family, you can jumpstart your charitable projects for the coming season. Need some help brainstorming family-friendly service projects?
–>>15 Service Project Ideas for Kids
If the third Saturday won’t work for you, you could schedule this activity on the fourth Saturday in October for official National Make a Difference Day. Or on October 30th for Speak Up for Service Day.
See, there’s truly something to celebrate every day of the year!
Make Candy Together
Since Sweetest Day actually began as Candy Day in 1916, you could also use this day to get together with friends or as a homeschool co-op to test some candy recipes for the coming holiday season.
- Afterwards, drop off your favorites to anyone lonely, sad, or struggling that you know if your circle of influence.
Here are some candy recipes that might help:
DIY Harry Potter Chocolate Frogs
- If you need a low carb marzipan recipe for making your own shapes, try our Keto Marzipan & Almond Paste Recipe.
Religious Holidays in October
The most widely known U.S. religious holiday in October is probably Halloween (followed by and All Saints Day and All Soul’s Day the 1st and 2nd of November). Although, most people don’t think of Halloween as a religious holiday at all!
If you’d like to lighten up Halloween or even just cut back on all the sugar, please read our article: “5 Homestead Alternatives to Trick-or-Treating”.
- If you prefer to skip Halloween altogether, you could try Mischief Night as outlined in our book Homestead Holidays.
Or you could focus on something else, like The High Holy Days as outlined below.
Fall Feast Days
For Jews and Biblical Christians, the autumnal holidays are among the most significant of the year. In modern times, we sometimes refer to these as The High Holy Days of:
- Rosh Hashanah (aka Feast of the Trumpets)
- Yom Kippur (aka Day of Atonement)
- Sukkot* (aka Feast of Booths)
Because the Jewish calendar is lunar, the exact dates for these holidays move around our western calendar (for a more thorough explanation fo calendars, see that section in your copy of Homestead Holidays). However, they usually fall in late September or early October, and move along through the season in succession to end with Sukkot.
*Depending on whom you’re celebrating with, Sukkot may not always be included under the moniker of High Holy Days.
To Celebrate the High Holy Days in October
Since these are three separate and very important holidays, there are a myriad of ways you can celebrate them. However, to stay focused on natural ways to integrate them into your homesteading year, I’m going to only share two.
Make Sourdough Apple Challah
Apples are such a huge part of the harvest of this time of year, for me at least. For some reason, I feel safe and secure if I have apple trees planted in my orchard. Is that an American thing or an everyone thing?
Challah bread is a classic Jewish bread, two loaves being made every Sabbath for their observance of the special day. However, at this time of year, I kick it up a notcht by including apples.
I strongly encourage you to make our Sourdough Apple Challah at some point in October!
–>>Here’s the Recipe for Sourdough Apple Challah
Time With Your Thoughts
While you’re muching away and feeling so happy, consider getting out your journal and pondering a few of the themes of The High Holy Days. One of the things I really like about the Jewish holidays is that they’re very spiritual – they make you think and feel.
You may not celebrate the new year until January 1st, but Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year. The name literally translates to Head of the Year.
So, spend some time thinking about what really worked on the homestead and in your family this past year.
- What didn’t go so well?
- What goals would you like to set to improve the coming year?
Yom Kippur, which occurs ten days after Rosh Hashanah, is a deeply contemplative holiday for Jewish people. It includes a lot of focus on repentance and forgiveness, which is clearly seen in the translation of the name for this holy day: Day of Atonement.
- In your journal, make a list of personal weaknesses you’d like to conquer this coming year.
- Focus on weaknesses that you might actually be able to turn into strengths with a little focus, prayer, and elbow grease.
Also considering making a list of people from whom you need to ask forgiveness.
- Write a short note experessing your regret for whatever it was you did that was less than it should have been. This will help you feel so free, regardless of the response from the receiver.
This is the whole point of Yom Kippur – freedom through repentance (or change)!
Sukkot: Camping or Crafts, or Both!
For Sukkot, it’s traditional to plan a camping trip with friends and family since the tradtional activity for this day is to build an outdoor shelter as a meetingplace for the next few days.
If camping isn’t on the calendar for you, try making some natural decorations:
- In case you’re baking, here are some ideas for natural cake decorations, too.
If you want booth (outdoor gathering space) ideas, grab your copy of Homestead Holidays and flip to the Sukkot section. Don’t have a copy? No worries, we have one set aside just for you below.
Celebrate homestead holidays in October with a fun pumpkin smashing contest to harvest seeds and pumpkin meat for livestock. Keep the pumpkins separate if you'll be planting the seed next year. Super easy to do with your homeschool co-op. *Since gravity adjusts pull to customize force for each object, the pumpkins will all hit the ground at the same time if they're released at the same time. Prepare to have a conversation about gravity - enjoy a teaching moment! Be sure you're far enough away from each other that the seeds won't accidentally mix. Make sure the youngest in the family are watching from a secure location so they don't get bonked by a falling pumpkin. After you've harvested the seeds from each pumpkin, toss the remnants into your livestock trough or the compost pile. You can also feed wildlife with pumpkin flesh, too. If you end up busy that first Wednesday in October, you can combine a pumpkin seed celebration with a national pumpkin day on October 26th. See, no stress to get it done by a certain day. Don't just "get it done"; enjoy it!Resources for Holidays in October
20+ Ways to Preserve Pumpkin and Winter Squash
Healthy Pumpkin Granola
Pumpkin Smashing Contest
Materials
Tools
Instructions
Notes
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