Families gather for fun at the Frankfort Fall Festival in downtown Frankfort. The annual event features giant pumpkin-carving and the Crazy Pumpkin Drop, a parade and Mutt March, a craft fair, home brew and pie-eating contests, helicopter and wagon rides, and music, food and games like the Hillbilly Olimpiks obstacle course.

RUFFAGE by Abra Berens

Holiday shopping is always charming in the Grand Traverse Region’s charming cities, towns and villages decked out for the season with twinkling lights and a cloak of snow. But it’s especially fun when area for these special events designed to encourage visitors to come, shop and stay a while.

Nov. 15-Dec. 14, “Elf, the Musical”, TRAVERSE CITY

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve: the holiday trifecta that goes hand-and-hand with binge eating and drinking.

Bridgett Beckwith’s friends and family can expect some amazing holiday gifts each year.

Ludington has many charms but one of the best is its New Year’s Eve panache.

A favorite book, “Crap at My Parent’s House,” has recycled among family and friends so often that it could be in Guam, for all I know. Its popularity resonates because it pokes fun at bizarre gifts and traditions, many associated with the holidays.

Carol Worsley has been teaching cooking classes for more than 50 years, so it’s hardly a surprise that she loves to put on a holiday spread that would impress even Julia Child.

Name: Bryant Betts. Position: Crystal Mountain Resort Executive Chef.

Island dreams come alive during northern Michigan’s summer but an iconic party spirit has life beyond beaches and warm breezes.

The holidays are all about traditions — some passed down from generation to generation, others of our own making.

There is an art to wrapping gifts that might make a merry Michelangelo blush with envy. Or a child burst with bubbled-over anticipation.

Many of us have at least one gift we can recall receiving that has a very special meaning. But among a few local families, those kinds of gifts are tradition.

We sportsmen and women are a weak lot, sappily blabbing on about the color of the sunrise over a duck marsh, or the smell of sweetfern in a favorite bird cover. Little does the weight of our game bags matter if we managed to soak in a smidgen of fleeting fall in the process. Senses alive, we pack up for home after each outing, satisfied regardless if game will grace tomorrow’s table.

Elizabeth Paxson is a poet, writer and visual artist who resides in northern Michigan among mutable trees and elusive waters near the 45th parallel. She owes much gratitude to a now-deceased aunt who led her to the well of words and taught her to drink deeply. Her poems have appeared in collections such as “Peaceable Kingdom” and “Poet’s Night Out” (2016-18) and one of her short stories in the bilingual journal Night Picnic Press (2019).

Sept. 22-Dec. 29, 2019 — Dennos Museum Center Exhibitions

Families gather for Colantha’s Garden Celebration at Historic Barns Park in Traverse City in honor of champion dairy cow Colantha Walker. The Holstein-Friesian is buried at the park, once part of a self-sustaining farm operation run by staff and patients at Traverse City State Hospital. She produced 22,918 pounds of milk in 1926, making her the highest producer in the world.

The Michigan Trail Riders Association thinks the state Shore-to-Shore Trail is something to sing about. The organization’s annual October Color Ride completes the group’s 56th year of saddling up for the iconic Empire to Oscoda crossing.

Teasing and pleasing in their own right, fall and spring stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their celebrated sun-soaked sibling, summer.

You know you’re in for an adventure even before you get there.

The excitement surrounding game days in the fall stirs up appetites, making every sports fan want a full serving of hearty appetizers.

Mother Nature’s kaleidoscope to the countryside — autumn — is painted with a rainbow of trees and plants that can be squeezed, sliced and stirred into flavorful, colorful drinks.

Monica Cory knows from personal experience that shopping can be therapeutic.

NAME: Forrest Moline. POSITION: Private chef and owner of Forrest, A Food Studio, a food-centric event space in Traverse City for cooking classes and pop-up restaurant events

Looking for a new spot to enjoy fall splendor? Explore Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy’s recently unveiled Torch Lake Nature Preserve.

TRAVERSE CITY — Morel mushroom hunting is a popular springtime activity — but for those in the know, it’s just a precursor for fall.

A glance through the pages of fall fashion magazines like Vogue and Bazaar shows models wearing denim, pleated materials, bomber jackets, capes, over-the-knee boots and plaid — lots and lots of plaid.

Apple cider. Pumpkins and cornstalks. Trees cloaked in a canopy of scarlet, orange and gold.

"Honey, what’s the schedule on this fine, warm Saturday?”

Aug. 12-18 — Paint Grand Traverse: GRAND TRAVERSE, SURROUNDING COUNTIES.

Classic car owners gather with their enviable rides for Cars and Coffee at Hagerty Insurance Agency in Traverse City. The weekly social event has been held every summer since 2016 and brings together agency employees and other collector car enthusiasts.

BEYOND THE LIGHTHOUSE, OVER THE MOUNTAINS by Tony Steeno

TRAVERSE CITY — Rich Brauer isn’t one of those people who is counting down the days until he can retire.

Northern Michigan’s hot summer days bode well for cooling off with gourmet summer treats concocted from various chocolatiers and ice cream makers alike.

Glen Arbor is one of the most popular tourist destinations in northern Michigan, as the town sits between Lake Michigan and Glen Lake, near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore attractions and the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. Not surprisingly, the 850-person Leelanau County community swells during the summer months.

NAME: Eric Nittolo. Job: Executive chef, food and beverage director at The Restaurant at LochenHeath. The Williamsburg restaurant at LochenHeath Golf Club is open to the public and focuses on locally sourced farm-to-table ingredients. It’s especially popular for its Sunday Brunch.

Renew body, mind and spirit this summer by uniting your yoga practice to nature. Outdoor classes offer opportunity to partake of Mother Earth’s sensory feast to nurture serenity, fitness and joy.

Mark Engelsman took a pair of paddlers on this season’s first Beaver Island Water Trail trip, which was filled with bird and fish watching, wilderness experiences and even a trip through Lake Michigan fog.

Cathy Sehnert has always had a taste for the artsy and a deep love of shopping. The two combined have made her a perfect fit for the Leelanau shopping scene.

Camouflaged in their surroundings of pine saplings and maple groves, a forest of bed-and-breakfast getaways enjoy long roots in the Grand Traverse region.

Bellaire Bed and Breakfast’s Jim Walker is no ordinary innkeeper and his gardens are no ordinary gardens. They reflect his mastery of growing arts and his ability to enhance the environment by planting among the flora statuary, water features, seating and other artsy touches.

Second is the best contends a schoolyard rhyme — and surely it’s true when it comes to the summer season.

June 26-30, 2019. Freedom Festival. EAST JORDAN.

Summer in Michigan — anywhere, really — is, for many, the best time of year. For us Northerners, anything beats a long, sustained winter, the likes of which thankfully just passed. We not only look forward to the warm weather, we crave it; but not like craving a Hershey bar. More like a shark craves fresh blood or the Tigers crave a decent bullpen. This irrational yearning for not freezing anymore means that after the first 75-degree day, we firmly shelve common sense between the wool scarves and snowshoes and do things that defy logic, science and most genetic traits of an evolved human being.

Ladies wore their finest wide-brim, derby and fascinator hats for the Hats Off to Women Luncheon hosted by The Zonta Club of Traverse City at Northwestern Michigan University’s Hagery Center. The annual May event celebrates the leadership of women in the city and features awards, a hat contest and door prizes.

Situated on the southeast end of turquoise Crystal Lake, Beulah is in an ideal position to attract summer visitors. Normally populated with about 300 residents, the Benzie County village draws hundreds of guests for summer events just a stone’s throw away from the lake’s sandy shores.

TRAVERSE CITY — Retail vacancy rates in downtown Traverse City have hovered around 1 to 2 percent for the last several years, forcing those who want to open shop to find alternative locations on side streets or elsewhere off Front Street.

BEFORE THE SNOW FLIES by John Wemlinger. Major David Keller was well on his way to becoming a general when a roadside bomb in Afghanistan took his legs.

TRAVERSE CITY — The wind and waves always pose an unpredictable difficulty, but it’s not enough to keep Ashlea Walter from Grand Traverse Bay’s open water.