Fall Family Activities for Muslim Families: Our First-Week-of-Autumn Bucket List

Home & Hospitality

Fall officially begins Tuesday evening. Here is what our family does with the first weeks of it, from the orchard to the dinner table.

The autumnal equinox lands on Tuesday, September 22, at 8:05 p.m. Eastern this year, which means by the time the kids are in bed, it is officially fall. In our house that is the signal to pull out the crockpot, find the good blanket, and start the list. Not a Pinterest list, an actual list, taped to the fridge, of fall family activities for Muslim families that we want to get through before the first snow lands on Columbus.

Here is this year's version. Some of it is universal. Some of it is very specifically ours, with chai in it. All of it is doable with small kids, a normal budget and a weekend.

1Orchard day, the halal way

Central Ohio has more apple orchards than we can visit in one season, and if you live near any American city you probably do too. Go early on a Saturday before the crowds, bring a wagon for the little ones, and bring your own snacks. The cider donut stand is usually fine, but a lot of the fried and candied treats at fall farms are made with ingredients you cannot check, so we pack a thermos of chai, a bag of nimko, and a tin of dates and we are the happiest family in the parking lot.

Give each kid a job: one holds the bag, one counts apples, one is in charge of picking the "ugly" apple that goes into the crumble. It keeps the whining down by roughly half.

2The cardamom apple crumble Sunday

Whatever you picked, half of it becomes crumble on Sunday afternoon. Our only twist is a teaspoon of ground cardamom and a pinch of salt in the topping, which makes the whole house smell like an Eid morning in October. Serve it warm with chai and let the kids do the oat topping with their hands. This is the afternoon the neighbors usually wander over, which brings us to the next item.

3The first soup-and-naan night of the season

The first cold evening deserves a pot of something. Ours is usually a big chicken corn soup or a lentil daal with garlic naan, made in the morning so the house smells right by Maghrib. The guest list is the trick: this is the dinner we use for new neighbors, the family from the kids' school we keep saying we should have over, and the auntie who lives alone across town. We wrote a whole post on making guests feel like family and the soup night is where we practice it.

4Daughters Day on Friday, Sons Day on Monday

National Daughters Day is Friday, September 25, and National Sons Day is Monday, September 28. We used to ignore both. Then we realized they are a free excuse to make one child feel seen for a whole day, without a birthday budget. The rules in our house: the child picks dinner, gets a handwritten note under their pillow, and gets twenty minutes of one-on-one time doing whatever they want, even if it is watching them play a video game. One small keepsake with their name on it, the kind they will find in a drawer at 25, is the only thing we buy.

Kids do not remember the big fall festival. They remember that you made their soup, wrote their name, and stayed for the whole video game.Amraha, every October

5Fall traditions that are not Halloween

Every Muslim family handles October 31 differently and we are not here to referee that. We are here to say that fall has plenty of magic that has nothing to do with it. A backyard bonfire with s'mores and a round of dhikr after Isha. Pumpkin carving where each pumpkin gets a family member's name in Arabic instead of a face. Apple-print art on brown paper with the toddlers. A hayride at the farm in daylight. A family walk to collect the ten best leaves, pressed in a book for the winter.

6Fall wedding season, handled early

Half our friends got married in October, and if your calendar looks the same, the gifts are easier if you buy them now, not the week of. Our Muslim wedding gift ideas list is the one we send to family when they ask.

7The countdown on the fridge

Here is our favorite fall tradition and the newest one. The month of Rabi al-Thani began this September, which means Ramadan is roughly 150 days away. We put a paper countdown on the fridge next to the bucket list and let the kids tear off a number each morning. It reframes the whole season: fall is not the run-up to one night in October, it is the long, cozy road toward the best month of the year.

Humraha means "companion" in Urdu. We are Humza and Amraha, a married couple in Columbus, Ohio, making personalized gifts and apparel for Muslim and South Asian families. Free US shipping, 30-day money-back guarantee, always at humraha.com.