The whole family gets into the Autumn Bucket List

This summer, I had one simple goal I wanted to achieve before the season’s end: go to an outdoor ice cream stand and celebrate the warm weather by ordering an enormous chocolate chip cookie dough sundae with caramel sauce.

Since it’s nearly the end of October and I have yet to do this, I believe I can safely say I’ve missed my window of opportunity. There are still outdoor ice cream stands that are open, but it’s definitely no longer ice cream weather.

To prevent this from happening again with fall, Dad suggested I prepare what Oldest Younger Brother has dubbed the Autumn Bucket List, a list of things I would either like to do or really need to do before the first big snowstorm.

Since my family was so forthcoming with suggestions, we decided to make this a group effort. Between the six of us, we came up with 40 essential autumn activities and important winter preparations.

Here’s my list:

1. Buy a car that doesn’t overheat. Car number four has decided to go the way of the Oldsmobiles.

2. Find leg warmers that are work appropriate.

3. Find my fingerless gloves so I can type at my computer in the newsroom without my hands shaking. The only time of the year I’m warm without multiple layers is August.

4. Visit Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge.

5. Visit Oldest Younger Brother in Salem, Mass. This is an impossible dream, as the town will be packed until after Halloween.

6. Empty the industrial vacuum, which is full of kitty litter I’ve vacuumed up from around the cat box.

7. Buy a bag of mellocreme pumpkins.

8. Put my flashlight back in my car. I took it out when we had the ice storm last year and I needed to find my way around the house.

9. Try pumpkin cheesecake.

10. Spend some time outside just appreciating the foliage.

Dad’s list is somewhat more practical:

1. Put snow tires on the car.

2. Clean out the garage. With all the summer detritus, there’s no room to park the car right now.

3. Rake the leaves. The leaf blower will not be used this year, as Dad accidentally sent a chipmunk airborne last fall.

4. Trim back the gardens. That is, the parts the deer haven’t eaten.

5. Store all the air conditioners.

6. Buy a snow blower.

The first item on Mom’s list elicited a lot of laughter from the family:

1. Find a foolproof recipe for a crock-pot meal. “We should make a garden just to bury your food in. With little headstones,” Younger Sister commented. “The headstones can have the recipes on them,” added Dad.

2. Buy a fresh supply of individually wrapped fireplace logs. They’re easy to start when Dad isn’t home to light a fire.

3. Clean out the garage. Mom and Dad are on the same page with this one.

4. Stock up on winter teas from The Cozy Tea Cart in Brookline.

5. Get sweaters dry cleaned.

6. Visit the Zimmerman House in Manchester. Mom loves Frank Lloyd Wright, and the house closes for the winter at the end of December.

Oldest Younger Brother gets a bonus item because he had so many great ideas:

1. Walk around in his Halloween costume on a day that isn’t Halloween.

2. Take a day trip to Nahant, Mass., to see the World War II bunkers and the Cold War missile silos.

3. Try every type of pumpkin beer.

4. Eat pumpkin pancakes at Parker’s Maple Barn in Mason. He’s only allowed to do this if he takes us, too.

5. Complain about living in Salem, Mass., in October while secretly loving it.

6. Watch old horror movies, preferably with a blanket and cocoa.

7. Try to pop Indian corn.

Younger Sister’s list is, well, interesting:

1. Reorganize her closet. She wanted Dad to convert it to a walk-in before she did this, but doing so would require altering the structure of our house.

2. Visit The American Girl Store in New York City. We’re taking a day trip in November.

3. Learn to use the sewing machine Mom and Dad gave her last Christmas.

4. Make a companion for Sir Anthony St. James Sock Weasel.

5. Ride her bike. This will be challenging because she currently doesn’t have one. She outgrew her old one and one of our neighbors is kindly giving us her daughter’s old bike – we just need to get around to picking it up.

6. Wear lots of dresses. She has to wear snow pants to school in the winter, which, she informed me, smush her dresses.

Youngest Brother’s list was the hardest to get. “Family Feud” came on while I was querying him, so he was less than focused.

1. Wear shorts. He’s always too warm. I envy him that problem.

2. Finish the soccer season without it snowing on him.

3. “The Wall family won! The Wall family won! What? Oh, uh, build forts in the woods with my friends.”

4. Go through a corn maze. We may have to tie a rope around him, though, in case he gets distracted.

5. Go backpacking to a Boy Scout campout.

6. Ride his bike. Unlike Younger Sister, he actually has one that’s the right size for him.

Since these lists are not completely representative of our family unless the cat gets to have her say, here’s a mini list from Cleo:

1. Figure out how to use the leaf blower to assist in chipmunk catching.

2. Make sure the laundry basket full of unmatched socks is accessible for snuggly winter snoozing.

3. Practice getting on and off the top bunk since Youngest Brother is the warmest person to sleep with in the winter.

I hope our Autumn Bucket Lists have inspired you to enjoy the remainder of the fall season and get cracking on your preparations for the upcoming winter, especially since it appears we might have a shorter fall than usual.

As I’m writing this, it’s snowing for the second time in three days. It’s not sticking just yet, but you never know. I’d better start looking for my flashlight, lest my car overheat while I’m burning rubber to Cathedral of the Pines.

Tete a Tete appears every other week in Encore. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@nashuatelegraph.com.