Growing up, my family hosted a “scarecrow party” at our home every year. A dozen or so families joined us for a night of scarecrow assembling, chili eating, and ghost-in-the-graveyard playing (home base was always the bed of my Dad’s pick-up truck!). To me, this night was even better than Halloween.

When John and I moved into our house three years ago, I was excited to kick-off some new traditions around entertaining and hosting. Likely due to my scarecrow-making past, our first (and most successful) tradition is also fall themed: a soup and pumpkin carving night! Since we just celebrated our third annual event, I thought I’d share a few tips.

— Since ours is an indoor event, we’ve found that keeping the guest list to three couples works out well. That way, we can still fit everyone around the table (with extra leaves in place) for carving and eating.
— We provide two soups and guests help with the extras. This year, one brought a salad, one brought some drinks and dessert, and we added cheesy bread and more drinks.
— Since our event is on a weeknight, prep work the night before is key. John made one pot of soup and prepped ingredients for the second the night before, then heated the already-made soup in the crockpot and assembled the second on party day as soon as he got home from work.
— A few crowd-favorite soup recipes we’ve used in the past: Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Jalapeno, Award-Winning Chili, Potato Leek Soup, Tortilla Soup, and Hunter’s Minestrone.

— We try to be mindful of everyone’s time (especially since many have little ones now!) and have dinner ready to go when guests arrive (usually around 6:30). The first hour is taken up with chatting and eating, and the second with chatting and carving.
— Some couples carve one family pumpkin, and some carve two individual ones.
— I protect our table with a length of kraft paper. Pumpkin guts go in a big bucket in the middle after dinner. The only other tools required are a selection of kitchen knives for carving and writing utensils for sketching (bonus: the kraft runner doubles as a sketch pad!).
— May I suggest my Cozy Fall playlist for background music?
— Before folks leave, we take group portraits with each family’s masterpiece!

Do y’all have any hosting traditions to share? I’ve been thinking about adding a Christmas card addressing afternoon this year :)

Ooh boy. I’m a little nervous about November, as it will be an unusually full month for us. We have a commitment Monday-Thursday evening for the first three weeks (instead of our usual rate of maybe one commitment per week!), we’re traveling one weekend, and we’re hosting guests another. And on top of that, I have some major work events, and, oh yes, a major holiday to celebrate! For some reason, all of that hasn’t stopped me from setting a large number of goals for November, but maybe that will work in my favor — did y’all ever experience the phenomenon, maybe in high school, when you got much more done in-season than out-of-season? Necessity is the mother of efficiency, perhaps? Either way, with the clock ticking on our girl, I’ll take it!

Biscuit supplies at my church’s booth!

Revisiting my goals for October:
Paint baby girl’s room (Thank you, Dad and John!)
Switch out baby girl’s light fixture
Assemble crib
Order crib skirt
Make first draft of labor and delivery preferences
Organize linen/party closet (Yes!! I am so pumped about this one! Sadly, I didn’t take a before, so it probably wouldn’t be that impressive to y’all.)
Successfully lead discussion in our family group for the next three weeks
Introduce John’s parents and aunts to Asheville on our annual trip
Host the third annual pumpkin carving and soup night
Catch the goat showmanship competition at the NC State Fair
Make biscuits at our church’s Fair booth
Create my own version of this glitter star garland (the lone goal that didn’t get checked off!)

November goals:
— Take rings in to be cleaned (I usually do this in September around our anniversary, but it’s still lingering.)
— Take knives in to be sharpened
— Frame and hang our NC BBQ print (have to figure out how to do it first… maybe something like this?)
— Make a pelmet for little lady’s room (already bought the fabric and will use Jenny’s tutorial!)
— Choose and order twin bed bedding
— Choose and order Minted Christmas cards (voting post coming soon!!)
— Design and print Christmas card newsletter
— Vote!
— Host the first Articles Club
— Purchase half of our Christmas gifts for friends and family
— Start filling out our girl’s baby book

Whew!! That is WAY more goals than I usually tackle, for two months back to back. If you’ve posted yours somewhere, I’d love to see – or just drop them in the comments!