Giving Thanks and Thanksgiving Holiday Decor

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?
– Oscar Wilde

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was my first time hosting and (hallelujah) the turkey turned out just fine. We have much to be thankful for and were able to host wonderful family and grandparents at our house this year on Thanksgiving, celebrated a Friendsgiving feast with new friends earlier this month, and have our 5th annual Thanksmas feast with our college gang next week. Again, we have much to be thankful for!

Now that we’ve polished off our plate of pumpkin pie, and will be re-heating our last meal of delectable turkey/gravy/potato leftovers tonight for dinner, and I’m ready to move on to Christmas (!!!!) decorations and music in this house! I’m a firm believer in separating the two holidays and giving Thanksgiving a proper celebration without the infringement of holly-jolly, but I am ready to begin!

Last year I started a rule for myself – only purchase ONE holiday decoration every year. I can give myself a half-pat-on-the-back this year. I stuck to it – sort of.

I bought these tiny wire pumpkins from the Christmas Tree Shoppe for $3.00 earlier this fall. They are actually namecard holders – but I like them on the mantle. They are simple, small to store, and I can leave them out all autumn – a win-win-win in my book.

I re-used my DIY Felt Autumn Leaves Garland again on the mantle.

For the centerpiece I pulled out my DIY Rustic Twig Coffee Can Centerpiece and used some fake floral from an old cornucopia I had in the basement that had seen better days.

I say that I only “technically” followed the rules of my holiday decor buying ordinance, because I also bought a new tablecloth and runner. I haven’t bought any since we got our new table, so everything I own is too small!

I got this tablecloth and runner at HomeGoods (decor heaven) and picked this tablecloth because I thought I could use it year round.

For namecards I just used plain white paper and stuck them on some ceramic white apples I used throughout the year as decor.Overall it was a very non-fussy holiday! Just the way that we like it. Moose’s grandparents hadn’t seen our house since before we even moved in, so they were quite surprised to see how much work we have done! It’s always nice to see our progress again through fresh eyeballs.

I never know what to do on my sideboard. My Nearly No-Sew DIY Patchwork Bunting has been up there since the Lumberjack birthday party we had in April, and I added the pumpkin, scarecrow (from my childhood!) and some gourds.

I didn’t manage to take a single picture of all the food (too busy devouring!) or our weekend activities. We broke in our fireplace for the season – which makes it officially feel like the holidays.

We are also working on continuing an old tradition – we got a cooking lesson from my mother-in-law on how to make an old family favorite recipe for kringla (a Scandinavian pastry).

Happy Thanksgiving!!