Fall Fun Isn’t That Fun

Do you have a flannel shirt on? Are you drinking a warm apple cider festooned with a cinnamon stick, or a pumpkin spice latte, or somehow both? Are you eating an actual caramel apple in an actual corn maze? Are you surrounded by pumpkins—just, like, absolutely hemmed in by them on all sides, like an actual prison made of pumpkins? How about mums? You got a gajillion of those? Maybe even some of those Frankenmums that are somehow yellow and purple and orange because they are botanical visitors from the multiverse?

My family recently visited one of the prettiest damn apple-picking farms on the Eastern Seaboard (despite the dust, the drive, and the bees—Jesus Christ, the bees). But the orchard was unusually crowded, and our group got separated, and we all spent the day in search of each other, wandering the farm like Caine in Kung Fu. Plus, I forgot to post or even take any pictures to remember the trip by, which feels somehow like the biggest #fallfail of all. Spirit of the Great Pumpkin, help me, I feel kinda… bad… about it? Despite having all these delicious apples and all these really nice memories, I somehow feel like I did it wrong?

Then there was the weirdly dark, weirdly early autumn evening when, after breaking a sweat trying to untangle the cobweb lights that make up one infinitesimally fractional part of my family’s seasonal decor — which, when fully assembled and installed, can be seen from outer space — I wondered, how did we get here? Why is it so exhausting, and expensive, and how did this artisanal ceramic pumpkin get into my apartment? How did fall become so strenuous?

The answer, I’m afraid, is the Chute.

In the name of all that is mulled and holy, you’re riding this thing until New Year’s.

What is the Chute? Funny you should ask. Because we’re in it — all of us, right now, but especially those of us sipping maple-flavored beverages. The Chute is the horn of plenty of seasonal fun that sucks you in around Labor Day. (Or, if you’re a parent, sometime in late August, when you receive the first Chasing Fireflies catalog full of perfect Halloween costumes that cost more than your prom dress did.) Have you ever dropped a penny into a funnel at a science museum and watched it circle gradually faster and faster until it’s spinning on its side in the narrowest part of the funnel, so fast that the penny becomes nothing but a shining blur, winking maniacally, before dropping out of sight? The funnel is the season that now creeps from late September to the end of December, the Q4 of festivity. You are the penny. And, in the name of all that is mulled and holy, you’re riding this thing until New Year’s.

You’re not alone if you find this temporary seasonal fun apocalypse (funpocalypse?) of weekend traffic, crowds, logistics, and performative social posts to be exhausting. Forced. A strain on your budget, your time management skills, or even your relationships, as any couple who has attempted to navigate a corn maze on a hot, climate-changed autumn afternoon without enough water or patience can attest. I mean, holy crap, I am tired and it’s not even Halloween yet.

Is it fun? Not always. Still, my family can’t stop roasting every root vegetable and mulling a vat of cider large enough to drown in. We go to that same apple orchard every year, emerging dirty and sticky with $100 of fall produce that we could have gotten at the grocery store for $20. We hit the same corn maze, fall festivals, and Halloween parties every year, and we make the same pies and baked goods every year.

Of course, you don’t have to complete the whole Fall Harvest Fun™ to-do list. You can skip the overpicked pumpkin patch and not take the annual “How Tall This Fall” photo at the orchard. Your kids can still have a happy childhood and you can avoid the symptoms of Strenuous Seasonal Fun Disorder. You can give yourself a break, you really can.

Or you can go all in.

Because here’s the truth, and I won’t apologize for it: The Chute is effing metal. It is badass. It’s punk rock. Only the strong survive this level of Fall Fun. Even when Fall Harvest Fun threatens to collide with Uncomfortable Thanksgiving Family Fun and then Meaningful Confusing Hanukah Fun and then Gluttonous Sparkly Christmas Fun, the only way out is through. Jump into the Chute face-first and hold onto each other tight, hollering and drinking hot apple cider, until it spits you out.

The goddamn Chute is here, and I’m going in, so help me. Let’s start prepping for Christmas.