A New Way To Give Thanks: Creating A Thanksgiving Tablescape
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While many of our local stores have already sprung into Christmas mode, I would be sad if I missed the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving. Just about a month away, it seems that Thanksgiving has gotten a bit run over in recent years as people look towards Black Friday, Cyber Monday and of course, Christmas. Now, I absolutely love Christmas, however I also love being able to gather with family and reminisce on the blessings of the past year. To me, gratitude, however big or small, keeps my mind in perspective and holding fast to the ways that the Lord has both revealed Himself and His care for us over the past year. In that mindset, I wanted to share a Thanksgiving tablescape that centered on a new way to give thanks with a few tips and tricks for setting a low stress table. Whether you have a whole table gathering to celebrate, or are a small company this year, I hope that this tablescape will help inspire you to center on gratitude.
Gratitude Place Settings
As a child, I always enjoyed when we would go around the table and say what we were thankful for. When we were young, our responses normally centered around the first things that came to our minds: our house, family, food, sports, health, country… But as we grew older and more people went around the table, it felt a challenge not to copy everyone else’s responses! When Charlie and I first got married and hosted Thanksgiving at our house, we began to think of a new way to incorporate gratitude. For us, it led us to rethink the idea of name place settings to gratitude place settings. Each seat has a different prompt or question about gratitude. Some center on a blessing in our own life or some on the life of someone else at the table. We found this to be a great option as people around the table suddenly had a direction when it came to share. Obviously, they can share however they see fit, but having a launching point can be a great way to eliminate the feeling of being “stuck” or “repetitive” with someone else’s response.
A few of our place settings stated:
- Describe something you are thankful for that has been an unexpected blessing this year
- Say one thing you are thankful for about the person to your right
- Mention one thing you are thankful for about the person across from you
- Share one thing you are thankful for about your church
- Tell one thing you are thankful for about our country
- Say one thing you are thankful for about our family
Feel free to add to this list or expand upon it for however many people you have joining you, but I hope that it gives you a new way to give thanks. With so many blessings in life, we could go on and on, but this helped our family to share in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Place each prompt in a pinecone (a great free activity for kids to collect!) or other simple holders, and viola! Your plate marker is complete!
A Centerpiece To Keep
As many of you know, I absolutely love fresh flowers. Whether growing flowers, arranging flowers or picking them by the road, any flowers to me are a welcome sight. That being said, I recently had the privilege of designing a wedding with primarily dried flowers and they were so beautiful! Tiny, delicate and whimsical, the dried flowers had such a unique twist with all of their bright mustard, violet and rust colored tones. This experience encouraged me to think a little differently for this Thanksgiving and I was inspired to buy my own dried flowers for an arrangement that would keep. By entirely using dried flowers, your arrangement can be made several days, if not weeks, in advance without fear of it going bad. If the stress of hosting Thanksgiving, preparing food and having company is too much to think of also creating a table arrangement, then this is a great low stress option that helps keep joy in the experience for both you and your guests by getting it out of the way before the preparation rush.
Making A Dried Flower Arrangement
Creating a dried table arrangement is also a way to use vases or containers that might not typically hold water. While I love this little brass bowl with animal feet that I found thrifting a couple of years ago, I found out the hard way that it does not hold water well. That being said, it worked perfectly for this centerpiece since it was entirely waterless! Just add a couple pieces of tape across the top in a grid pattern, or use some crumbled chicken wire in the container to act as a form to hold in the dried flower stems and then create away! You can find dried flowers at flower supply stores, but also many stores like Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Anthropolgie, etc carry them as well.
Some of the flowers that I used were:
Modern Bent Candles
Another low stress, but super fun way to add some pizzazz to your Thanksgiving tablescape is by creating your very own bent candles. This DIY guide to Modern Bent Candles allows you to add a twist to a traditional candle display. Like the dried flower centerpiece, these candles can be made quite a while in advance to eliminate any day of preparation stress.
Reuse & Repurpose
Lastly, but certainly not least, don’t be afraid to reuse or repurpose items you may already have on hand. A large part of gratitude for me is linked to contentment with what I already have and recognizing what I have been blessed with. Sometimes it takes more creativity to give something a new life, but in a way, it also brings more excitement and contentment in the finished project. In this tablescape, the table runner is actually just a piece of fabric that I had on hand that I hope to one day make into window treatments for our office!
About a year ago, I ordered fabric for window treatments and as many of you know, life gets crazy and projects get pushed out, so why not use it in the meantime! Since it was long enough for our table, but not wide enough to act as a tablecloth, I ironed the edges in to make it a wide table runner. I did not sew anything so that it can be ironed again and used in the future for its original purpose. If you have any fabric on hand that you have been saving for a different project, feel free to pull it out and temporarily give it a new life! You just might be more excited about your final tablescape then if you bought something else you had to store.
Final Thoughts
Thanksgiving is such a fun holiday to gather, remember and reflect on the food, family and life that we have been given in the past year. Whether this year for you was full of ups or downs, I hope that these ideas will encourage you to find a new way to give thanks this Thanksgiving. Tablescapes don’t just have to be an attractive way to welcome guests; they can act as conversation starters, launching points and sweet reminders of all we have to be thankful for.
Happy celebrating!
