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Monday, October 20, 2025

Welcome, Fall!

Creating Memories in Enid This Autumn

Fall, a season of transition, is meant to be savored. Each of us mark this season by slowing down to enjoy special moments such as watching the foliage change into sunset-hued colors, cheering on your favorite football team on the TV for their rivalry game, or crafting your favorite fall-inspired meal.

Some around town like to get a head-start on celebrating the season by swapping out their porch decorations for “It’s Fall Y’all” signs and happily sipping on their pumpkin spice lattes before it’s even September first. Others hold out until its officially “spooky season” and wait for the arrival of Halloween before breaking out their favorite 8-foot skeleton yard decoration.

One thing is for sure – there is no one date to begin officially celebrating fall and no one right way to celebrate. But there is one thing that we can count on – Enid offers so many fun ways to celebrate the season, no matter your budget or what you enjoy doing. Below are some ideas for new traditions to try with your family, fall events to attend, and food to savor, all informed by locals!

Locals Share Favorite Fall Traditions

Madison Soferr, a local Enid Public School teacher and New England native, shared that some of her favorite things about fall include “cold weather, being cozy inside, and foliage.” Since moving to Enid, Madison enjoys hayrides at Red Bird farm, making her famous hot apple cider, and enjoying the leaves changing. Madison shared that growing up in Massachusetts, her childhood memories of fall included dressing up in costumes to march with her school band in the Haunted Happenings Parade, which took place annually in Salem, Massachusetts. In Enid, Madison Soferr absolutely adores, “the foliage on the [Enid] trail, it’s very yellow [during the fall].” If she wants to venture farther, she enjoys going to Tulsa to see all the leaves changing, especially around a school that she shared reminds her of Hogwarts.

At school, Madison’s students look forward to the Fall Festival, which is a time for her students to trick or treat around different classrooms and gives them an opportunity to wear their costumes. This year, Madison shares that attending an Enid football game to cheer on the Plainsmen and watch the Enid marching band perform are on her fall to-do list. Lucky for Enid residents, the Enid Plainsmen will be playing Norman on October 10th and Jenks on October 31st. Season tickets can be purchased in advance on GOFAN.

Becky, owner of Red Bird Farm, explains how a big part their family time during fall, “centers a lot around our work here on the farm,” which, “is a fun way to enjoy the fall season and has become a family tradition the past six years.” As a family, Becky shared that they love getting to test out the maze, hayrides, and picking through pumpkins. Like many of us in Enid, no fall would be complete without decorating pumpkins. Becky shared that their family “love(s) to all pick a pumpkin and carve our own design to light on the porch and in the house.” When they aren’t working on the farm, Becky and her daughters can be found baking anything from pumpkin pie to pumpkin bread “to really soak up the season.”

Danielle Chouteau, owner of Hooves N’ Harmony, shares that one of her favorite traditions is meeting up with her best friend to take their children to go trick-or-treating together on Halloween. On the farm during fall, Danielle adores being able to ride outside in the cooler weather, especially since “the horses always have a lot more energy because it’s cooler outside.” When she can, Danielle enjoys taking her son to go trail riding both locally and over in Stillwater to see the leaves changing colors.

Get Festive this Fall with Fun Events in Enid

In Enid, you won’t be short of family-friendly events to soak up all the special things about this season. In fact, the only problem you’ll have is making sure your calendar doesn’t get too crowded! Whether you are looking for a fun date night on the town or an outdoor adventure with your littles, Enid has it all during October. Below are a few events worth checking out this season, all shared by locals.

Red Bird Farm kicks off their fall season with the Harvest Market on Saturday, September 27th from 9am-4pm, which includes vendors, food trucks, shopping, and hay-rides. During October, Red Bird keeps its gate open for Fall on the Farm, which includes its pumpkin patch, corn maze, hayrides, and Barn Store on Saturday from 10am-6pm and Sunday from 1pm-6pm. If family fun on the farm is your style, this is a stop you shouldn’t miss! More information is available on Red Bird Farm’s Facebook page or website.

If your kids or grandkids love animals, there’s no better way to get them outside and enjoy the fall weather than checking out Hooves N’ Harmony’s fall events. Keep an eye out on the official Hooves N’ Harmony Facebook page for their finalized Horse Tails event date. During this event, adults can take their kids to the horse farm to practice reading to horses. Families can see the horses, chickens, bunnies, and the barn itself. Chairs are set up outside of the stalls for the little readers to share their favorite stories with their four-legged horse friends. Pony rides, hot apple cider, and raffles are expected to be available, too.

Additionally, on October 4th, Hooves N’ Harmony will offer pony rides at Drummond Days, which is an event in Drummond that helps raise funds for their city park. For more information about Drummond Days, follow the Drummond Days Facebook page. Pony rides will also be available on Family Farm Day at the Cherokee Strip Heritage Museum, which takes place on October 4th from 11am-3pm. According to the Cherokee Strip Heritage website, the Family Farm event will focus on, “Farm-to-Table and showcasing how the food and other necessities were grown and made before stores and food delivery was available.” The event will allow families to shell and grind corn, decorate pumpkins, and partake in many other activities!

As it gets closer to Halloween, nothing is more fun than getting to don a costume around town while making memories with your friends. Enid Frights up the Plains is the perfect opportunity to put on your creative costume and head down to Downtown Enid’s Courthouse Lawn for Enid Frights up the Plains. This event will take place from 5:00pm-8:00pm and include costume and jack-o-lantern contests, Halloween Queen pageants, and other vendors.

It seems almost everyone in town knows that it’s not officially fall until you see the Christ United Enid’s pumpkin patch open! Each fall, Christ United Enid, located at the intersection of Cleveland and Randolph, opens its pumpkin patch, which has a selection of pumpkins available for purchase. It’s the perfect spot to take your family to select pumpkins you plan to carve, paint, or use as decor and hopefully snap a couple of fun family photos in the meantime. 

Another crowd-favorite fall event is Downtown Enid’s First Fridays, but especially the Oktoberfest First Friday, which is typically held the first Friday of October. Previous Oktoberfest First Fridays include fun games, food trucks, beer from local breweries for purchase, and vendors. Details for the event can be found on Main Street Enid’s website or social media pages.

For those in Enid that adore all things bump-in-the-night and spooky, Nightmare Warehouse, a local haunted house, or Tombstone Tales, a local cemetery tour, might give you just the right scare! Nightmare Warehouse, located on Walnut Street, opens back up on October 9 for select days, which can be viewed on their website and Facebook page. Tombstone Tales takes visitors on a horse-drawn wagon ride through Enid Cemetery while listening to a historic re-enactment of individuals who once lived in Enid. To book tickets, you can stop by or call the Enid Visitor Center. Tours will be available for a variety of times on October 10 and 11.

Fall Food Favorites

No season, especially fall, is properly celebrated without indulging in creating or buying some seasonal treats. Fall time brings pumpkins, apples, hearty vegetables, hot beverages, and cool nights to mind.

The perfect way to kick off the cold-weather season is by showing up to support the United Way Chili Cookoff. This year’s cookoff will be hosted on Friday, October 24th, from 11-1pm at the Stride Bank Center. The chili-cookoff is a fundraiser for the United Way of Northwest Oklahoma, which uses funds to help meet local health and human-care needs. Attendees can sample chili from a variety of organizations and enjoy this year’s Halloween theme! Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door, and there will be a Ford Maverick raffle drawing at 1pm. It’s a great way to enjoy a cup of comfort food and support your local community!

Madison Soferr shares that she adores making homemade hot spiced apple cider for when the weather finally gets chilly. In her apple cider recipe, she enjoys spicing the cider with, “clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, some cardamom pods, and orange slices,” and will warm all the ingredients together in a crockpot. According to the Smithsonian, apple cider has ancient roots as an alcoholic, fermented drink, but didn’t take off in popularity until colonists settled in New England where apple trees were plentiful. Over time, non-alcoholic versions of the drink were created, which are closer to the ones we consume today. Now, we can all head to the farmers market, like the Barn Store at Red Bird Farm, or the grocery store and pick up our favorite cider along with the ingredients Mrs.Soferr suggested. A cup of hot apple cider is best enjoyed while watching a football game, hosting a Halloween party with neighbors, or enjoying a fire on a particularly cool night. 

Fall time can also mark the last harvest from your garden and the perfect time to start utilizing any canned or dehydrated goods from your summer garden. Danielle shared that during her summer tomato harvest, she often dehydrates tomatoes into tomato powder that can be rehydrated once she’s ready to use it for sauce or other recipes. Another vegetable that seems to be plentiful in Danielle’s garden into early fall is the Acorn Squash. Danielle shares that her favorite way of preparing this delicious squash is to “cut [it] in half, take the seeds out, put butter, garlic, cinnamon, and brown sugar in them and make this fall treat that…has the consistency of mashed potatoes.” Apparently, acorn squash has the wonderful ability to take on the flavor of whatever it’s cooked with, making it a candidate for both sweet or savory dishes. Danielle also plans on planting and harvesting some fall vegetables like kale, green beans, and lettuce “because those will tolerate the cooler weather.”

This year, after Danielle and her family partake in their annual pumpkin carving tradition, they plan to try something new as a family and roast pumpkins seeds. This is such a fabulous way of enjoying a seasonal treat and reducing waste! To roast pumpkin seeds, all you need are the seeds, some kind of oil, and salt. To add flavor, spices such as cinnamon, sugar, or chili pepper can be utilized to give the seeds a more distinct flavor. Pumpkin seeds make an excellent addition to homemade granola, a topping for salads or even oatmeal.

Looking ahead to the Fall Season

With so many exciting events and things to do this season, it’s easy to get caught up in creating a check list of sorts. But if the incredible locals we heard from have taught us anything, it’s that finding small, meaningful ways to mark the changing of the season and sharing those with our loved ones – family, friends, and beloved four-legged friends – is what matters.

Kristen Day
Kristen Day
Kristen Day grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and currently lives with her husband in Enid, Oklahoma. Day has a background in the public service and nonprofit sectors and holds an Honors B.A. in International Relations and German Studies from the University of Delaware. As a 2021 U.S. Critical Language Scholar, Kristen enjoys language learning and travelling. In her free time, you can find Kristen volunteering on the Vance Spouses Club board and at the Enid Public Library.

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