Thanksgiving Table Setting

Setting the table for Holidays- one of my new favorite things to do! This year, my boyfriend Chris, and I had Thanksgiving at our house for the first time. We had 17 people total- mostly family and a few friends. It was filled with laughter, cooking, drinking, stuffing ourselves, and quality time with loved ones. I started prepping early, and only had a moment or two or being stressed during Thanksgiving week. I wanted everything to be nice, so I worked hard and once again, started early, and got everything done! And, ate dinner only 1 hour late- which is pretty successful considering everyone brought dishes that needed to be warmed, prepped, etc. Anyways, I'm getting off subject. I am going to tell you about my table setting! Leading up to Thanksgiving, I had been looking on Pinterest for ideas, and pinned some stuff, but in the end, I kind of did my own thing.

For 17 people, we needed a lot of seating and table space. So, we have our dining room table that we added a couple of chairs to, then we used a couple of plastic fold up tables and plastic folding chairs to be able to fit everyone. Luckily, the way our house lay out is, we were able to make one long table which worked out perfectly!

Initially, I was going to get some pretty and festive tablecloths and use white linen napkins. However, that idea changed when I learned that after Halloween, all Thanksgiving tablecloths are taken out of stores and Christmas everything moves in. So, I decided to go with white tablecloths ($9.99 from Amazon) and blue cotton napkins found at World Market ($9.99 for 6) with burlap for a classic, country/ farm house look. I used the same roll of burlap that I used for my fall wreath.

First, I washed and dried all of the napkins. They were wrinkled when they came out of the dryer, so I ironed them which took about 40 minutes to do all 30. I had fun with it though, listening to 60's/oldies Pandora station- feeling like I went back in time to being a housewife in the 60's.

Then, I once again looked on Pinterest for napkin folding and wow those instructions were complicated!! So, I said screw that and folded the napkins in half once and then in half again, put the silverware- knife and fork in the middle and wrapped with burlap and tied the burlap in a knot. Super simple!

 They came out better then I expected!

I was so excited to get everything on the table. I set one table the night before Thanksgiving- which I was hesitant to do since my cat, Penelope, is very curious and normally likes to walk all over the table if I put anything new on it. Luckily, she was not interested in doing that once I had the table set- big surprise to me!

Here is the first table that I did:

I bought the real pumpkins and gourds in bags at Publix and the banner at World Market. All of the glasses were mixed-matched, some bigger than other, different shapes, different designs, but they looked great together! I also found the turkey salt and pepper shakers on Amazon and the rooster napkin holder at Woodstock Market (an amazing place that I'm sure you'll hear me talk lots about in the future!). The two chairs in the middle were hand-me-downs from my mom and the blue chair I got for $15 at Junk Day at Woodstock Market. I placed the burlap wrapped napkins and silverware on the plates because I liked that better than them sitting on the side and that also gave more room for all of the food to be placed on the table.

I set the next two tables Thanksgiving morning:

I used a basket from TJ Maxx and left-over napkins for the bread basket which added to the whole look. I also added small pinecones (that I had left over from making the wreath) to the middle of the table. The last table does not have plates on it in the picture because I did not have enough. Chris' mom brought some for us to use- which was a big help!

I had so much fun decorating and setting the table, I'm ready to have another dinner party! Who's coming over?!