With Covid-19 still a factor, your holiday season might look different to you than in past years.
For instance, you might not be dragging out extra table leaves for the dining room table and trying to find enough chairs for everyone. Maybe your favorite aunt isn’t coming and making her traditional rolls, and maybe the big game will end up getting canceled.
But if you want my advice, don’t give in. Make Thanksgiving bigger–even with fewer people. I’m not saying you have to cook a few extra courses or come up with nine kinds of pie, though that would make you my personal hero, I do think we need to make the day a little more special.
Instead of sulking over dry turkey because of the pandemic, let’s have an extra helping of gratitude and fun.
In other words, keep up your family traditions and try out a few new ones. Play some games. Get on Zoom and connect with the family that can’t be with you. Maybe do some online karaoke. Send every person a letter and tell them why you love them and why you’re grateful for them. Have everyone find a new favorite song and whichever one is voted the best, wins a prize.
And invest some time into making the decor stand out,
Bring Traditional Accents to Your Table
But be careful of this. A little turkey decoration goes a long way. Unless you’re trying to decorate for the kids, don’t make huge papier-mâché renditions of turkey heads to cover the backs of the chairs or anything like that … at all.
However, a pretty ornament on each of the smallest plates would be adorable. Stack the dinner plate with a salad plate, and possibly a dessert plate, in colors that complement each other well, and leave a colorful glass ornament on top. Something from Old World Christmas, for instance, which could be an ornament that depicts a piece of pumpkin pie, a turkey platter, corn, and a turkey.
You could also choose a colorful collection of acorn ornaments or put two glittery leaves on each plate.
To save money, you could also collect real acorns or leaves and spray them with gold paint.
Go Boho Chic
For stellar Bohemian chic you’ve got to have a good foundation. We love the linens from August Table. The mill-made cotton tablecloths and napkins come in beautiful colors and are hand-block printed by artisans in India. Click here to check out their collection.
Go through your dishes and see what you have that goes well together. Perhaps you can combine small ocean blue plates with some white and blue chinoiserie or a few lemon-colored dessert plates.
If you’re able to add to your collection, maybe support some artists and buy some pottery locally or on Etsy.
Use lots of natural elements on your table, some gorgeous flowers, and lots of candlelight.
Fruit Arrangements
Gourds are a traditional table decoration and you can do some harvest-style arrangements with different colored varieties, though they are technically a fruit.
But why not decorate with fruit people can actually eat? Bunches of dusky grapes, halved figs, and pale green pears, for example. Put some cheese on the table with a small knife and you have a beautiful table that a hungry family can nibble on while they wait.
If you have a glass cover such as a cloche, also known as a bell jar, you can also cover fruit arrangements for a touch of elegance.
And if your family is literary, maybe bell jars will stimulate a spontaneous conversation about Sylvia Plath. You never know.
You can also use bell jars to cover fairy lights, which is a lovely look.
Have a lovely Thanksgiving!
