Happy Thanksgiving!

While I firmly believe in maintaining an attitude of gratitude year round, it is certainly fun to celebrate our appreciation for blessings this time of year. That being said, we kicked off the holidays last weekend by having great friends over for dinner. I had so much fun compiling the table, and had to take some pictures to remember what I’d done. I love table settings!

Last weekend we used our fall china, in Spode’s Woodland pattern. It’s perfect for fall, and casual enough for a relaxing dinner with friends. I love the brown flowers on the edges, and we have some great serving pieces to go with it, so it’s perfect for using for big Thanksgiving-ish meals.

My mom always does fabulous tabletop decor for the holidays. This is such a simple idea, with such outstanding effect. She took pheasant feathers and arranged them in simple decanter-style glass jars, then tied the jars with a gold satin ribbon. She arranged the jars around hurricanes filled with hazelnuts, and candlesticks. Won’t this look gorgeous in candlelight?

This last photo is a quick snapshot of the compote that normally sits in the middle of my mom’s dining room table. (It’s on the kids table right now!) She changes out the filler depending on the seasons. This summer, the compote boasted her fabulous collection of shells. Now it’s holding these gorgeous pine cones. These are from the Redwood Forest, and are at least fifty years old, so they’re hard to come by. But you could create the same effect yourself using smaller pine cones and a smaller compote.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! What are you thankful for this time of year?