Raquel Vaughn-

Do you ever take those ridiculous (but very important) Buzzfeed quizzes where one of the questions is always “What is your favorite season?” I’ve completed a fair share of those quizzes because I’m always in the mood to know what dog I would be, which faction from Divergent I belong to (Abnegation), or which one of Sarah J. Maas’s characters would be my mate (Azriel). But why is there always a question about my favorite season? And why is it always Fall?

Sometimes, I feel a strange sense of guilt when choosing Fall. I’m not trying to sound too much like an “I’m not like other girls” type of girl, but isn’t it too basic? I feel like Fall is everyone’s favorite season. But that’s simply just because Fall is amazing. Everything that involves Fall is superior: Fall coffee drinks, Fall clothing, the Fall of the Roman Empire, The Fall of Jake Paul…everything Fall is the best.

One of the reasons that I hear the most about why Fall is the best season is because it means getting to wear the best outfits. It’s true: I only look my best when I can layer. There’s a reason why it’s called “sweater weather.” And there’s a reason why it rhymes—because it’s just ultimately superior. A crisp 55-degree evening in mid-October is my favorite time of the year. I can wear an oversized hoodie with leggings, fuzzy socks, and Birkenstocks with no judgment. With this fit on an average Fall day, I don’t have to anticipate sweating or freezing. I’m comfortable.

I will not lie; the pumpkin spice lattes are getting out of hand. But they’re also so good. There’s a reason why they are so popular. They taste as if you took all the leaves in your backyard, the scent of the Autumn air, and the vibes of Halloween in a blender and mixed them up into a drink.

Let’s speak more of those three things in depth. Leaves. They fall because it’s what they do best. They’re great by themselves and they’re even more great when they are in piles. The amount of serotonin I get from stepping on an orange leaf and crunching it into tiny, little pieces is almost concerning if it weren’t because everyone else gets the same happy feeling when they step on a leaf. It’s actually more concerning how disappointed I get when I step on a leaf, and it doesn’t do the crunch thing. But when the leaves are in a pile, you can jump into it! Many childhood memories were made by raking a backyard’s worth of leaves into a giant pile and jumping into the orange, yellow, and red oblivion of foliage. And don’t even get me started on the orange trash bags that look like carved pumpkins when you fill them up with leaves! They are so cute, and I smile and point every time as if I were passing a cow instead of an artificial Jack-o-Lantern.

The Autumn air always has a certain scent. Maybe it’s the crisp cold, or maybe it’s all the pumpkins and pumpkin lattes with powdered cinnamon. Suddenly, during the Fall, everyone smells like cinnamon sticks, pumpkin pie, and vanilla bean. Another reason why Fall is the best season is that Bath and Body Works puts all their hard work into every single candle, hand soap, and perfume.

Halloween is the ultimate reason why Fall is the best season. Between the costumes, horror movies, the spooky music, and the lack of shame when eating from a giant bowl of candy, we should just create a version of Halloween for every season. Or better yet, a Summer Thanksgiving, a Spring Thanksgiving, and a Winter Thanksgiving. Well, I guess Christmas is kind of like Winter Thanksgiving…so maybe not that. But Thanksgiving is another Fall holiday that reigns above others solely because there’s food involved. And not just food but a lot of food. I can’t think of another season where a person can get a cavity and up a pant size within a month’s time. I call that a good time.

Everything counts in the Fall. Listening to Christmas music before Halloween? That’s alright! We all get it. At this point, Christmas music belongs in Fall, anyway. Listening to spooky Halloween music just days away from Thanksgiving? That’s also okay! The sky gets dark by 5 p.m. on Fall nights, which calls for spooky music all the time. Everything goes when the leaves start turning brown. Even that video of that lady singing about Thanksgiving meals. Every November, I bust out that remixed song as a celebration of Fall.

A lot of people think it’s such a basic season because it’s hyped up too much. Girls are made fun of for taking pictures in pumpkin patches. But that’s just because pumpkin patches are cute and fun! Starbucks girlies also get a bad rep for their preference for Fall drinks. It’s just a fun season when the world becomes a bit more festive. Fall is not basic or overrated. Fall is perfect. And the sooner you start to understand that, the sooner you feel less guilty about choosing it as your favorite season on all those Buzzfeed quizzes.