We decorate for both Halloween and fall. My kids are in high school and love that I still decorate. We have outdoor lights and two projections on the house (one of floating ghosts, the other looks like the brew in a witch's cauldron). I have Halloween knick knacks in the family room, living room, kitchen and powder room.

In November I change the Halloween decor to fall. I have a lot of glass pumpkins and some pretty beaded garland that I put on the fireplace mantel.

I decorate for Christmas right after Thanksgiving so my house doesn't get back to "normal" until January. I really dislike changing all the decor but my kids love it so I still do it.

I used to do a fair amount of holiday decorating for the kids, but as they got older no one helped to set it up or put it away, so I gradually stopped. I don't put anything out now, and no one else is interested in getting any of the stuff out themselves. Last year I didn't even pull out any stuff for Christmas and it was great not having to drag everything out and a few weeks later put it all away. Christmas isn't measured by how many garlands or trees you put out and it was great to finally feel like I didn't have to feel guilty for not decorating.

Sheeisback GW, I dislike (and loathe and fear) Halloween because I am a cat lover and that is bad for cats, especially the black ones I favor. But this year I did a small nod to it in my office where I draped my small conference round conference table in the torn black cheesecloth and added some real and faux pumpkins including the black glass one I found on Etsy.

My real love is autumn and I love the (real) wheat sheaves, cotton ball stems, stunning leaves and mix then up with the real and faux pumpkins and a few old and beloved fall decor items and a couple of autumn-colored candles.

Chloebud, I think your table is beautifully simple and welcoming. And I am amazed that you have real ones that are a year old!

Angel, you made me laugh out loud. I enjoy wine on occasion but that is maybe a few (very few) times per year. So the one or two bottles I had this year--okay one because the second one still has some wine left in it--weren't enough. I had planned to do something like this (12th image: https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/easy-last-minute-ways-to-decorate-for-halloween-235654 ) but with red "bloody" drips added to the candles.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is when I take down the autumn decorations, which have been up since around October 1, and put up Christmas the next day, Saturday. I love it all but I don't overdo it. I've never liked too much and/or overdone holiday decor but what I do I do to please me. I love coming in after work and seeing it; it invariably makes me smile. (And these decorations during the last three months of the year are the only seasonal/holiday decor I do.)

I have some canned pumpkin in the pantry. Does that count?

Not really a thing in the UK

Canned pumpkin is not worth anything until and unless it is cooked into something like pie. Don’t you do seasonal stuff in the uk? All the fall produce is coming in and it is nice to appreciate it.

Manon, I love the m&c stuffed squash!

Aphaea, some pumpkins will last a very long time. I once had a large white one last for over two years. Funny, instead of spoiling, it kind of dried up inside and became lightweight.

We have a lot of squirrels here, so I always worry about my outside pumpkins. We've never had a problem...so far. Sure don't want to go outside and find THIS!

I used to do a lot more, fall and Halloween decorating inside and out, when my kids were little. Now I just do a little bit in the house, and only fall as one kid is in college and the other almost done with high school. And I don’t do typical fall colors anymore, since I remodeled my house. Now it’s more non traditional decor but I like it. Christmas I definitely go wayyyyyy out.

Now that we're empty nesters , I don't decorate for seasons /holidays except for Christmas if we're going to be home. I do have two planters on my front porch that get planted/decorated for spring, summer, fall and winter. They only get done because I pay someone to do them. LOL If I get grandchildren I'll probably start seasonally decorating again.

Ah, gotcha. As a fellow animal and cat lover that always very much bothered me this time of year too.

I don't decorate for Halloween. It's still warm here when autumn starts and I always dislike bringing out autumn decor when it feels like summer. However, this year I found some items with autumn motifs, but lighter colors and that's what I used. I like this decor much better because it seems to fit the feel of late summer and autumn and maybe even early winter.

Chloebud, I laughed out loud at the picture of the squirrel. What a hilarious little gal she is.

arcy_gw, I love your yard! I'd be taking walks past it every day just to admire it.

K R, your autumn decorated home is beyond stunning. Relatively close to what I enjoy achieving too.

Fun2BHere, I love this very much. It has the same elegant yet friendly look I go for too.

More pics and posts, please. This is making me quite happy!

I’ve never decorated for Halloween, and I never used to decorate for fall because growing up in the south it was my least favorite season. We finished up our tile job on our porch and walkway last year at the end of summer, and this summer my hubby bought me a bench for the porch (I hope to get a matching one for the other side of the porch soon) and now I’ve been having fun changing out throw pillows. I also got some new planters this past spring, and I just changed out all of the plants in them, I love container gardening! Fall is prettier in the Midwest than the south, so I’m having more fun with a little seasonal decorations. I’ll change out the pumpkins right after thanksgiving. I don’t decorate for fall inside my house though... once a year at Christmas is enough for me, I prefer not to dinker around with my interior spaces, I like them how they are.

Very pretty, @skmom.

And it's all about the stems for me with pumpkins.

I view Halloween as a time to have fun with outdoor decorating. This year I'm going for a witch house aesthetic using only black. Neither myself or DH care for the color orange. I must admit: acorn squash is so tasty that it won't survive more than a week in my house.

Multiple witch hats (9). sway in the breeze over the porch - a kinetic sculpture.

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Make it interesting for those door-to-door salespeople, delivery folks, and trick or treaters with this door mat and sign (shown below)

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not sure if I will build this for my porch or not, but it is interesting

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DK, that's some chandelier! Love the witch hats. :-)

@J Williams ..Not Autumn and not so much Halloween like you do in the US ... Christmas is a different matter .

If you (and your family?) don't like Halloween, don't "do" Halloween.

Any "fall" decorations can stay in place thru both October and November -- and you could even leave a last pumpkin or two well into December -- until you're ready to use the pumpkins to bake the last of your pumpkin pies for the end of year guests to enjoy with your family.

Chloebud. Thank you very much!

Since we await the trick or treaters on the front porch, might do something like this to stay warm. We've got two white fluffy Maltese mixes (and DH is willing ). Either way, we found our family Christmas card idea.

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this one I had to share

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and another:

I live in a row house and my neighbors go bonkers with the best haunted looking window boxes I have ever seen. I just love a good reddish pumpkin on my step and then call it a day.

I am not in the us. We don’t have thanksgiving so close to Xmas, ours is more in time to actual harvest activities here, so there are naturally loads of pumpkins, squashes, apples and the like kicking around. That doesn’t stop stores from pushing Xmas on us already tho, next thing you know, they will be playing Xmas carols in the stores and we won’t have finished fall yet.

Those dog costumes are hilarious and deeply creepy for some reason lol. We had one guy down the street put on a massive skeleton costume one year, so that he looked like a part of his Halloween decor and would just sit in yard to scare the living heck out of little tricker treaters.

My dad was a big practical joker. On Halloween he'd answer the door with a big basket of potatoes and onions. The looks on the kids' faces were pretty funny. Then he'd grab the candy to pass out. He definitely found it more amusing than the kids did.

Halloween is my favorite holiday :) I don't do outdoor stuff- fall is harvesting and cleaning up the gardens and yard to prep for winter. But my living room gets turned into a full-blown Halloween village that starts getting planned out put up right after Labor Day and stays till second week of November. Today I'm finishing up the last of the village for it to be lit up for the next few weeks.

Then fall is delightful, and the spooky gets pulled and replaced with a smaller village full of Autumn shops and scenes till mid-December. Then the winter village goes up and is around till the beginning of February. It's a winter village, not a Christmas village.

The holiday I detest is Christmas- it starts getting pushed around the end of September (or even end of August in a store or two) around here, and it's just depressing to see the Christmas stuff out next to Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff- some stores have already started playing some Christmas music. After 3-4 months of Christmas overriding all of autumn, I'm just fed up with the commercial crap of it all and more than ready for those two days to be over.

I should try that on my neighbourhood kids. Some have been downright rude if they get something they don’t like, it is pretty hilarious. Like one year I was giving out play doh and I had one smarty pants say Hey, that’s not candy! In a bossy rude tone. One year I had raisins and I was bracing myself for another barrage of nonsense, when one kid said I LOVE raisins super sincerely.

"...and it's just depressing to see the Christmas stuff out next to Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff..."

Totally agree!

We don't have kids and Halloween is our best decorated holiday. I have 12 Talavera inspired or terracotta pumpkins with my latest acquisition being a beautiful witch. I have 20 LED candles inside each pumpkin - I can choose the colors to be the same, different, or rotate through 12 different colors. I also have orange background lights and purple lights in the front (same with the outdoor house lights). I bought and hung black felt bats with glow-in-the-dark googly eyes and cheesecloth ghosts with black sparkly felt eyes.

@Snaggy: we were one of 30 American family's stationed on a British army base in Germany. The Brits, and other nations, took advantage of Americans love for Halloween and trick or treated us to death. Most of their costumes were from Brit mess fetes and holidays, but sometimes the parents would order American costumes - through the PX - for their kids.

Outside, I do cheesy and fun ... giant spider web (with four furry spiders), lots of lights, wagon/scarecrow/etc scene, bats, ghosts, etc. Neighborhood kids love it all. :)

I went very simple inside this year. A few retro cuties, small real pumpkins, my large glass pumpkin on hearth.

(I was putting these in different spots, now they’re on the TV dresser.)

Little led pumpkin lights on mantle (glass bead garland behind it all, not showing up here):

Breakfast room hutch, real pumpkins with my antique crystal lamp (passed down through my family for over 100 yrs, my Mema gave it to me).

Jen, I LOVE your Talavera decor! Our local Tuesday Morning (and H-E-B grocery store) had some similar, I was so tempted. :)

@Jinx - Thank you. The wizard hat pumpkin is from an Austin H-E-B :) but now I live elsewhere in Texas, without a close by H-E-B (sob) so now I'm on a constant hunt for pumpkins at local nurseries. My first pumpkin came from Tombstone Arizona while my husband and I were on a Christmas trip (I'm from Phoenix). #TalaveraObsessed

I stop cleaning about 6 months before....instant scariness for Halloween! Cobwebs everywhere. LOL

Jen and Jinx, I love your photos! Jen, that's quite a pumpkin collection! Jinx, Your retro cuties are great!

I have these two witches from several years back. I don't have them out right now, but seeing these photos makes me want to pull them out. Second pic's kind of blurry, but I love the spider in her lap and the one hanging from her hat.

Love those, chloebud! (And your earlier pics.) :)

IF YOU LOVE/HAVE PETS:

On my community's website someone connected with, I think the Wildlife Care Network, posted a note about using caution in putting up the torn cheesecloth or fake spider webs, etc because an owl became entangled in one last year. Fortunately, they were able to dis-entangle the owl, it healed and was eventually released. But the picture of the owl in the white webbing was awful. Please do not string that cobweb-looking stuff stuff where birds can fly into it.

Also, cats are in danger this time of year, not solely but especially black cats. Please do not allow your cats outside unless you are with them until into November.

We used to do a full haunt at our house, but we also used to get up to 300 kids and then the last 10 years we would get 25 kids.
We would start creating in June/ July for the new season . By the time we were done we had the whole lawn full of pvc piping we had drilled holes in and taped it into a fog machine to create the cemetery, we used white riding it board and sculpted the tomb stones, made wire hands and finger and skeletons out of wire and coat hangers wrapped with packing tape and painted with glow in the dark paint.
We had music , the grim reaper jumping out , the Skeleton would fall out of the caufin

Sorry hit the post by mistake, that should be coffin.
Anyway we did this for years and then sold everything to a place that did a big farm haunt and now we don’t have any kids coming. Our kids had so much fun helping to put everything out, but no one to put it away!
We did the same for Xmas, my HD is a fine finish carpenter so what ever I could dream up he would make it.

I like fall decorating, and this year I used lots pumpkins and fresh flowers. Of course the fresh flowers dont last as long, but I just love fresh.

Love those fresh flowers.

I also gave up on Halloween decorating, but I do love pumpkins and Turkeys!

#LitUp I have LED votive candles in the sweet potato vine under the tree.

jinx, I love your glass pumpkin with the multicolored stripes and twisted stem. What a work of art!

Pumpkins worked for Halloween (as far as I'm concerned) and continue to work for turkey day. Something else that can work for fall thru Thanksgiving is mini wreaths around the base of candle holders.

https://www.google.com/search?q=images+mini-wreaths+around+candle+holders&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfgKSLrMjlAhUFhOAKHdvaDCcQ_AUIESgB&biw=1328&bih=617#spf=1572588344980

NatureGirt, that is pretty. You can find the shorter version over at Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com/browse-by-brand/pdp/the-holiday-aisle-modern-striped-glass-pumpkin-decorative-accent-thda3519.html?piid=&experiencetype=2&selectedvertical=7

Suzebell, I agree! I ended up buying a black glass pumpkin this year off Etsy and that was put away this morning but all of my real and faux pumpkins are out from October 1 through the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. I adore pumpkins.

I agree with suezbell regarding keeping the pumpkins through Thanksgiving.

The mini wreaths are also nice for chair backs for both Fall and Christmas.

Thank you, naturegirl! Last year, I had it on my breakfast room hutch ... it looked nice with the “flickering candle” light on next to it. :)

Love this thread! I took down Halloween decor today and kept out pumpkins and other Fall things. Added a lighted grapevine pumpkin to our scarecrow/wagon/pumpkins/straw bale display outside. Several adorable trick or treaters last night complimented our Halloween decor, which earned them extra candy. :D

I came across this autumn flavored decorative pillows - and couldn't not pass along to you guys - These are adorable!

I found them on loomlan.com

https://www.loomlan.com/collections/home-collection-wall-decor-display-framed-art-minimalist-contemporary/products/trow-pillows-decorative-best-pillows-accent-pillows