A lot of CR folk tend to wait until the fruits are ready for harvesting as a signal that it is time to celebrate Lùnastal. If you are able to grow your own vegetables then now is a good time to aim for them to be ready for harvesting – something to bear in mind when you start growing.

Celebrating Scottish style

• On the eve, sain the house and the boundaries of your properties, and those within it.
• Also on the eve, if you prefer to make rowan crosses for warding each quarter (rather than every Bealltainn), make and then hang the crosses at the thresholds and move any old ones to different places – to rooms that are not yet warded, or up into the roof-space, the car, the garage etc.
• Try making butter and crowdie cheese.
• Celebrate (to open or close the festival) with a great feast of the first fruits of the season – appropriate foods for this time include cream crowdie/cranachan, freshly made crowdie cheese and butter, with oatcakes, meats and whatever other seasonal produce is available – freshly picked if possible. Remember to set some aside for offerings.
• Light a bonfire for the feast if possible. Drink, sing and be merry, with lots of music. Fortunes can be told at this time too, friendly competitions – like races – can be held, but remember that dancing was frowned upon in many parts of Scotland at this time.
• Make the bonnach Lunastain – the traditional oatcake type works well, and these can be eaten with freshly made cheese spread generously over them. Alternatively you could crumble the oatcakes and mix in with plenty of melted butter to make Butter Brughtins to serve at the feast.
• If you are celebrating in a group, games and races can be held, divinations can be made and so on, with the festivities focused around a bonfire – dance (if you feel it appropriate), drink, sing, make music. Ideally it would be best to celebrate on a hilltop or near a lake, or at least make an outing to such a place to leave offerings.

Celebrating Irish style

• Try finding some wild fruits to pick, or ones grown in your garden – bilberries/blueberries are most traditional but gooseberries, strawberries, wild raspberries, and all types of currants were also picked (often served freshly mashed with fresh cream and sweetened with sugar). It's usually a little too early in the season for blackberries in Ireland and Scotland, but they can be available in the warmer climes of north America, for example, at this time. Now is the time to dig up some potatoes, if you've grown some of your own, and whatever else is ready. Don't forget to leave aside some for offerings.
• Prepare a feast of traditional seasonal foods, with the emphasis being on potatoes or (as is felt to have been the original dish before potatoes came to be the staple food) bread or porridge made from the freshly harvested crop. Cabbage, onions, fish, chicken, beef, lamb and bacon are all appropriate to serve, too, so mashed potatoes or colcannon are a good dish to make, nice and buttery with plenty of garlic, along with a roast. Try making some Fraughan cakes with the bilberries you have picked (or bought, if necessary). Offerings should be set aside for the beloved dead.
• Decorate wherever you are celebrating – inside or out – with plenty of seasonal flowers to mark the occasion, and make some garlands or flowers and ribbons (traditionally made by unmarried girls) if you like, “to mark the end of summer”.
• If you are celebrating in a group, games and races can be held, divinations can be made and so on, with the festivities focused around a bonfire – dance, drink, sing, make music. Ideally it would be appropriate to celebrate on a hilltop or near a lake, or at least make an outing to such a place to leave offerings. Bear in mind the words: “I leave corn and milk in your land, and mast in your woods, and increase in your soil.”