In "Redwoodian" hotel guests receive a one-word fortune written on a pinecone. Call it an offbeat amenity very much in line with the sort of thing the Finley family likes to do with their hotels.
I like writing little fortunes for my friends on their birthdays. They tend to be silly or odd or both. I got to thinking about a Halloween photo I could post this week, and I remembered my Fortune Urn, which I made for a Halloween brunch we threw a few years back.
Find a decorative urn, from a craft or garden store. Buy basic brown or white tags and an assortment of ribbons in Halloween-y colors and stripes. Then spend twenty minutes jotting down corny sayings or sugar-coated predictions.
You will eat 256 more candied apples in your life.
or
Whenever you step on a creaky step, make a wish on behalf of a shy person you've never met.
or
Call "goodbye" to your household ghost as you leave for work each day; they get bored and miss you.
Just make sure each guest pulls a ribbon before they leave your place. Yep, there might be a groan or two over what you wrote, but groans are part of Halloween, right?
