Nashville Friday Five: Celebrating Spooky Season and Halloween

Halloween is better than Christmas, and here’s why: No presents. No travel. No gift wrapping. No days off school. No disappointment when your kid doesn’t get a Tickle Me Elmo from Santa. Need I go on?

Most of all, Halloween kicks off the holiday season; it doesn’t pull up the rear with the most stressful week of the year, only to end in the second-most-disappointing holiday. (New Year’s Eve is a hot mess, but Valentine’s Day is still the biggest racket.)

So now that we’re in the actual most wonderful time of the year, here’s how to celebrate.

1. Buy Tiny Pumpkins on a Stick

Small versions of things are always cuter. Candy. Puppies. Babies. Shrink anything and it’s instantly 50 percent more fun. Christmas typically has this market cornered with Nativity scenes and absurdly priced Dickensian villages. But now? Halloween has tiny pumpkins.

When I saw these at Richland Park Farmers Market two years ago, I almost knocked over a toddler to get at them. I assumed they were a craft project, made out of clay or papier-mâché and spray-painted bright orange. But when I spoke to Flowerz owner Spencer Smith, he assured me they are, in fact, real, actual, tiny pumpkins — still on the vines they grow on. And when they still looked perfect three or four weeks later, I wondered how these haven’t replaced flowers as the go-to deliverable for fall nationwide. (Even when they truly “die,” they just shrivel, which means you could throw on some fake spiderwebs and keep rolling with the spooky effect.) 

As a flower expert by trade, Smith thrives when delivering pops of joy. After years of working on a flower farm outside Chicago, he found his sweet spot in designing and selling bouquets at local markets. When he moved to Bowling Green, Ky., he missed those market interactions, so he did what any enterprising floral artist would do: launched his own cut-flower farm. (A cut-flower farm sells only flowers they grow, while florists typically source from multiple vendors.) Today he turns his 50 distinct varieties of flowers into long-lasting bouquets to grab and go, or you can place custom orders (which he can put tiny pumpkins in).

Stop by and see Spencer:

• Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon at the Richland Park Farmers Market
• Tuesdays from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the East Nashville Farmers Market

2. Read Spooky Stories

No matter how good scary movies get, there’s something scarier about letting your own mind run wild with a book.

Parnassus Books

Check out Parnassus' list of spooky stories for kids and young adults from September and October, peruse the displays in the shop, attend an event, or just pet all the very good boys and girls (who might just be dressed up when you stop by). Snag a limited-edition 2024 fall T-shirt, and if you’re traveling for fall break, remember they have a store in the airport right after security where you can grab a better-than-average beach read.

Haunted Museum Storytelling Festival

On Saturday, Oct. 19, head to the Tennessee State Museum for the 26th annual Haunted Museum Storytelling Festival. Since 1998, this family day has been a favorite way to spend a fun, safe and free Saturday afternoon. Bring all the kids in costume and enjoy games, crafts and prizes, as well as:

• Spooky tales about our state’s past from local storytellers Charlie McCoin, Allen Dyer, Tonya Abari, Lisa Bubert and Antonia Royal Whitmore. An American Sign Language interpreter will be present during all performances, so no kid will be left out.
• Shows by the Nashville Puppet Truck at 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. 
• A free book from the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation, which kids can earn by collecting stamps at each “spooky station.” 
• The Tales From the Past exhibit in the museum galleries, which highlights strange and not-so-scary stories in Tennessee history.

Nashville Public Library

While the main Nashville library branch is undergoing a face lift, there is still plenty of seasonal fun to be had at the outposts. Check out the full calendar and hit these high points:

• Oct. 12: The Madison branch is having a deeply brilliant Costume-Swap Play Date, where you can bring last year’s costume and trade for a new one while the little ones have free play in the Story Room.
• Oct. 19: The Edmondson branch’s Halloween Spooktacular offers treats, books (duh), games and more, all to be enjoyed in costume. 
• Oct. 21: Make a spooky Halloween craft using air-dry clay during Teen Crafternoon. (There’s not a librarian on earth who could resist that pun.) 
• Oct. 23: Stop by Fait La Force Brewing in Wedgewood-Houston for a Halloween edition of Library Trivia that will test your knowledge of all things horror, from history to books to movies.
• Oct. 25: Capture the color of fall with a pumpkin-painting event at the Hadley Park branch. 

Finish out the month strong with the Southern Festival of Books on Oct. 26 and 27. They’ll have plenty of literary and seasonal goodness at the free event, including performance stages, food trucks and loads of books and book-related goodies. You can even read your Tennessee history as you get your steps in with a quick walk around Bicentennial Mall. (More Scene coverage of the SFOB coming later this month.)

3. Enjoy a Midnight Margarita at Burger + Grain

My dedication to Practical Magic is almost as well-documented as my love of margaritas. So it should come as no surprise that upon first meeting Burger + Grain owner Chris Payne, I let him know that the drink he’s currently calling The Best Things Happen After Midnight really must be renamed “The Midnight Margarita.”

But before we get into that, let’s talk about their classic margarita — You Can’t See Me — which they make with blanco tequila, simple syrup and clarified lime juice. I’ll leave the scientific explanation of how and why you clarify juice to the experts, but the gist is this: If you could remove all the pulp, pith, skin or seeds from a lime but leave the clear citrus and acid notes, the concentrated liquid you get is clarified juice. There’s an argument to be made that this creates a better margarita because there’s nothing to detract from the three key ingredients: tequila, lime, sweetener. There’s also an argument to be made that Burger + Grain’s margarita is currently the best in town — sharp and citrusy but still smooth and sweet, and all too easy to keep ordering.

For spooky season, however, Payne’s got a pitch-black drink on offer that is too fun to skip. He uses charcoal-infused tequila, which gives just a hint of smoke, cognac for sweetness and lime lecithin, another mad-scientist trick to emulsify the drink and add body. The rim gets a dip in black lava salt, and if that gorgeous drink doesn’t get you singing about putting the lime in the coconut, you haven’t had enough.

4. Visit The Sandworm at Noelle’s Hidden Bar

The weirder the world gets, the more I think Beetlejuice’s advice to “never trust the living” is as good now as it was in 1988. Through Halloween, you can take a trip back in time and explore the Hidden Bar’s pitch-perfect take on Winter River. As always, Noelle’s pop-up sings in the details (see: the Zagnut dessert, miniature village, playbill menu that I might have stolen to use as decor). If you want to dive headfirst into the vibe (and possibly into the toilet bowl later) try the diabolical Betelgeuse for $35. Made to share, the tiki-esque drink is strong and sweet, combining tequila, gin, lychee liqueur, lemon, agave and plum bitters. It’s served in a glass so cool the bartenders have to hold a credit card to stop people from stealing it. My favorite, though, is the Winter River Manhattan, made with bourbon, allspice liqueur, blackberry-vanilla syrup, black walnut and angostura bitters. It’s clean and strong yet warm and toasty, and it comes with a tiny skull skewer I immediately found and ordered from Amazon.

Tip: Noelle is offering a staycation deal, The Sandworm’s Sanctuary, which includes a room, a $50 Sandworm dining credit and a skip-the-line pass. Rates are typically high the weekend before Halloween, but they’re surprisingly still less than $300 per night Oct. 30 and 31, so grab ’em while you can. 

Other Spooky Pop-Ups:

• Goosebumps Menu at The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club: Like all good things from the ’90s, Goosebumps has been co-opted by a new generation. But The Fox’s kiddie-horror-themed menu is clearly for those of us who know Goosebumps as a book or a TV show, not a movie. 
• Black Lagoon at Barrel Proof: As Chris Chamberlain mentioned Monday: “Kelsey Ramage and Erin Hayes are longtime bar pros who came up with the concept of Black Lagoon four years ago at infamous New Orleans dive The Dungeon. ... [They’ve since] expanded the concept to more than 35 bars across the country and in Mexico, and it’s coming to Nashville’s New Orleans-affiliated tavern Barrel Proof from Oct. 10 through Halloween.”
• APOTHECA at Bode Hotel’s Sidebar: This annual pop-up is for those who like things witchy — think elixirs, potions, old vials, ancient books. It’s an especially apt theme this year as "The Ballad of the Witches' Road" remains perpetually stuck in all our heads. (Fun fact: That song was written for Agatha All Along by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who also wrote a few earworms for a tiny little movie called Frozen.) 
• The Raven’s Nest at Holston House: This homage to Edgar Allen Poe is a Gothic dream, from its dark florals to glowing candles. If you go on Friday or Saturday, look out for add-ons like tarot readings. 

5. Dress Up Your Dog

No one finds fun things for furry friends better than Dog Friendly Nashville, and no month is more fun to follow them than October.

Check out their digest of everything happening here, and make plans to attend some of the standouts:

• Titans, Tito's & Tails Dog Day at Nissan Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 24, is the feel-good event of the month, with 100 percent of proceeds going to: 
• Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary, which provides forever foster homes to senior dogs so they can live out their “retirement” as beloved family members.
• New Leash on Life, which focuses on owner education programs and spay/neuter campaigns with the goal of getting every animal adopted into a loving home.
• Oct. 19 is Nashville Humane Association’s Dog Day at Centennial Park. That means food trucks, doggie demos, local vendors, costume contests, fun zones, live entertainment and a bunch of adoptable good boys and girls. There will even be a lure course run by Camp Bow Wow, so you can see if your dog really could do what they do on TV, which is something every pet parent has claimed at least once.  
• While not particularly seasonal, Urban Dog Bar’s grand opening also takes place Oct. 19. Having peered through the fence at the enormous, pristine Nations’ play yard, I can tell you your dogs (and my daughter and I) are going to be in floofy heaven. 
• Cheekwood is hosting Halloween Pooch Parties Oct. 26 and 27. They hold two dog costume contests each day, with this year’s special theme being “Wonder Women of the art world,” inspired by Cheekwood’s exhibition of women printmakers of the 1970s. I know one of you out there has a dog with Frida Kahlo brows, and I expect to see you there. 
• Oct. 30 is officially Wag-o-Ween at Pins Nashville. Every costumed participant will get a free duckpin bowling card and wag bag.
• Sandbar Nashville has a breed-specific meetup nearly every day of October, culminating in a costume party on Halloween. (Request: If we are going to have meetups for breeds, can we also have one for rescues? Or mutts? Or rescued mutts? Big Dumb Doodles get enough attention.)

And remember, you don’t have to bring a dog to enjoy these events. Unlike a child’s costume parade, turning up without a participant will not get you escorted out.