Cosy Season is the New Spooky Season
Autumn is synonymous with "spooky season" for a lot of people. But I prefer to call it "cosy season". Consider this: a hot mug of your favourite warm drink - tea, coffee, or even hot chocolate in your favourite large mug, under a soft blanket, beside a lovely roaring open fire (or wood-burning stove). To top it off, you've just jumped into the best novel, and you find yourself in another world altogether, escaping the realities of colder, darker days that are fast approaching.
Here are some top tips and fun ideas to make this Autumn the best cosy season yet and get away from the spookies. Many of these ideas are perfect for a single person, with your partner or even including kids if you also have littles who aren't really into being scared.
1. Find a good book.
This is possibly the hardest part because until you've started a book and gotten into it, you won't know what sort of world you'll be entering and whether you'll enjoy it. I have a collection of novels that are good for most ages and are page-turners.
I Like Big Books And I Cannot Lie A4 Print, And Hope Designs.
The Narnia Series, including The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, is one of my favourite books. The great thing is that if you enjoy one, you'll more than likely enjoy the six others—that's right, it's a seven-part series. My favourite is Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
The Harry Potter Series—these are actually great books for the cosy season and spooky season! However, to my mind, they get scarier and less appropriate for children as the books go on.
To give a guide, we have let our children read the first three as and when they can read that length of book by themselves. They can only read book 4 when they're 9, book 5 when they're 10, and so on. We give them the next book as one of their birthday gifts, and it has become something that they look forward to each year.
My children are excellent and avid readers, so they are able to tackle a more extensive book from that age. I'm confident they have the emotional maturity to understand what's going on in the book and not get nightmares.
The Famous Five Series - These are also great and exciting books and page-turners for both children and adults. My Favourite is Five Go To Smugglers Top, book 4 in the series. Each book transports you to a magical world where 4 children can go off on adventures to the middle of nowhere, sleep on heather (which in real life is neither soft nor very bouncy) and have for best guardian, a dog called Timmy.
The Women by Kristin Hannah - this one isn't for kids. I've now read two books by Kristin Hannah, and both were five stars for me. This one had tears rolling down my face, and it is a page-turner. It's thick, but it only took me a handful of days to finish. It's about women who served as nurses in the Vietnam War, their experiences there, and when they returned. Warning, the romance isn't very believable - romantic novelist isn't her calling, but the rest of it is fantastic.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy are quite repetitive, to my mind, but if you enjoy slow, meandering narratives and a great adventure story, these are masterpieces. They are iconic for a reason—the stories are like nothing you've read before in a completely made-up world with its own writing and language. These probably wouldn't grip the attention of many children under the age of 8 or 9, but they're good for tweens and teens.
My Weekend Is All Booked Up A4 Print, And Hope Designs.
That's probably a good number of excellent novels and fiction series to recommend. Let's move on to what else you will need to make this cosy season extra cosy!
If you're not into reading (why?!?), you could choose a great movie to watch instead. Don't discount the idea of a cosy season cosy up just because you've fallen at this first hurdle.
2. A large mug of your favourite drink.
My favourite drink is one you may not have heard of before - it's called a London Fog - essentially an Earl Grey Latte with vanilla syrup. Scrumptious. If you'd like to give it a try this cosy season, you will need:
- an earl grey teabag
- a mug full of steamed milk
- 1tps-ish of vanilla syrup.
If you don't have steamed milk, pour cold milk into a pan and heat until it's almost but not quite boiling. Pour the hot milk over the Earl Grey teabag and let it steep for a while, absorbing the Earl Grey's flavour. Remove the teabag, add a little vanilla syrup, and voila!
A London Fog is like a chai tea latte, but a little bit lighter tasting and not as Christmassy—there's no cinnamon in it.
One way I feel extra cosy in Autumn is by choosing my mug carefully—it has to be one that feels lovely held in both hands and be a decent size.
My Cup Overflows Mug, And Hope Designs.
My new favourite is this one, 370mL, deep blue, and a gorgeous shape to hold. It says, "My cup overflows" (a verse from Psalm 23 in the Bible, but also a great pun to have on a mug). The mug is thick, lovely to hold, and large enough to hold a whole can of fizzy (if that is your favourite drink!!).
Set of 2 Hymn Lyric Christian Mugs, And Hope Designs.
I also love this set of two Christian mugs with hand-lettered hymn lyrics on them. They're white and Scandi minimalist and hold a whole can of fizzy. My favourite thing about these is that they are a good size, but not too big. You don't look at them and think, "That's a huge mug." They do hold a good amount, so you're not up and down halfway through a good bit of your book to refill your mug.
Step two, done.
3. A duvet or blanket on the sofa
There is nothing quite like snuggling on the sofa with your duvet or a lovely soft blanket. Suppose you're in the market for a beautiful, heavy, soft-as-heaven, delightful blanket. In that case, these blankets from Dunelm are my absolute favourites. When I first visited my husband's parents over 14 years ago, I fell in love with these blankets (I fell in love with the blankets before I fell in love with their son - maybe that was a piece of the puzzle?!). For my birthday, the first year we were married, my now-in-laws got me a couple of them, which we still have, and they are still just as lovely and soft 11 years later. Highly recommend. But a gorgeous, thick, soft duvet will do just as well.
4. Lovely soft lighting
Lighting is essential to finish off a day or evening of cosying up during the cosy season. There are a few great options to choose from or combine here. You could light a lovely scented candle, adding some cosy with the flame and scent. Choose a gorgeous autumnal smell, like Warm Apple Pie or Pumpkin Spice.
Warm Apple Pie Soy Wax Candle, And Hope Designs.
I also love to have some fairy lights up year round for days I want to be cosy. Fairy lights aren't just for Christmas, you know—I found this out in 2021 when I was trying everything to stay hopeful and fight depression. The fairy lights from Christmas stayed on, and we lit them every evening. Delightful.
If you have an open fire or a wood-burning stove, light it, for sure! And finally, a warm white lightbulb in a nearby lamp to read by will help for sure.
Add in some tasty snacks if you want (here's a fantastic recipe for the best and easiest raspberry and white chocolate blondies), and you have a delightful formula for cosy season days, enjoying the escape into another world with all the warmth and happiness in this world, too.
