Joanna Gaines Reveals What She Loves So Much About the Fall Season: ‘Lessons Learned’ and ‘Turned Pages’

Joanna Gaines loves the fall season. And not just from a design perspective. For her, fall is more than saying goodbye to summertime and breaking out the new season’s candles. She said it’s about “lessons learned, growth hard-won, and turned pages.”

Read on to learn more about the “theme of fortitude” she found in the season. Plus, how does she embrace the “magic” when preparing for fall at the Magnolia Market?

Joanna Gaines is embracing a ‘theme of fortitude’ for fall

In a post on the Magnolia blog, Gaines shared her thoughts on preparing for fall and a “theme of fortitude” she’s leaning into. She said she and her husband, Chip Gaines, have experienced “a little bit of all of it” in 20 years. And after all that time, she found a different approach to autumn’s changes.

The “rhythm” of the seasons is “a welcome reminder of the bigger picture: the falling then rising, the loss that leads to discovery, the sacrifice that pushes toward strength,” Gaines explained.

“Rather than flipping the page and looking for the lesson learned, I’m sinking into the strength earned,” she wrote.

Joanna Gaines is grateful and heartbroken as her first child is preparing for college in the fall

In the fall of 2022, Gaines will send her oldest child, Drake, to college. The accomplishment undoubtedly fills her with pride. But the reality of sending her first kid into the world is bittersweet.

“In the grand scheme of heartbreaking things, this one comes with a lot of gratitude and excitement,” Gaines wrote on her blog. “But still, my first child is moving away, and our family dynamic will change because of it, and that can feel like a loss of its own.”

And she has advice for others who might be going through something similar in their lives. “Whatever you might be carrying this year, this season, this very moment — remember fortitude comes to us in the inches forward. Not in one fell swoop or one big break,” she offered.

Joanna Gaines loves October and embraces the ‘magic’ of fall while preparing the Magnolia Market

Gaines said some of her “best memories are wrapped up in October” in an issue of Magnolia Journal (per Eating Well).

“It was the month I met Chip for one thing, and that was just the beginning. This same month 18 years ago I opened the original Magnolia shop,” the Fixer Upper star recalled. “I can still hear the sound of the front door opening, and the deep assurance that, despite the butterflies in my stomach, everything would be okay.”

Gaines added that “in the many Octobers that have followed, magic seems to meet me here.”

“From dreams born and dreams fulfilled, to simple memories of our family spending more time on the porch in the cooler weather,” she explained. “October simply stirs a sense of hopeful expectation.”

In 2021, Gaines showed fans how she prepared for fall at Magnolia Market in Texas, sharing that she likes to “highlight” the changing of the season with indulgent colors and textures. According to her, the second shoppers step into the store, they’ll feel the “welcome of that season.”