What a Bunch of Turkeys: A Thanksgiving Review

I've been as busy preparing for Thanksgiving this year as last year, but I sure haven't have a chance to take photos and write blog posts.  One reason is because many of the preparations are because both Eric's mom and my mom are flying out for the long weekend  Obviously there are meal preparations, but this also means house preparations.

Occasionally we have more than one guest at a time or a family with kids, so we finally got an inflatable bed to set up in the office/studio. since we already had a third down comforter, I wanted to make a duvet set for that bed.  I managed to put it together over a weekend. WHEW!  Hopefully I'll get some photos soon.  If you've been following along, you know that I sewed a new shower curtain for our main bath, too.  It's the start of the "remodel" project that I hope I can accomplish in January of February.

I'm just starting to enjoy Thanksgiving now that I'm middle-aged so I went on a bit of a decoration-acquiring kick this summer in between trips to Bend for work.  Now that live turkeys are as much a part of our daily life as neighborhood cats were when we lived in Portland, I've taken a shine to turkeys and knick knacks in their image.  Yeah for friends, Ebay and thrift shops!

Two tureens, one candy dish, a pair of candles, two salt & pepper sets, and one candle holder.

As long as I can remember I have been fascinated by honeycomb paper decorations. The left-hand turkey is vintage from a thrift store and the right-hand turkey is a dollar store item.

Of course I have a pinterest pinboard for Thanksgiving and after I heard that most likely those at the first Thanksgiving served venison, I had to include deer imagery along with the turkeys.  So it's all about turkeys, deer, pumpkins, and that forest classic: pine cones.  

The leaf bowl was a welcome gift from one of the neighbors. In it are various pine cones: glitter ornaments, handmade felt that I put together for another project that didn't work out, and a real one from the property.  So far the dogs haven't noticed!  Last years' centerpiece craft project and place setting pumpkins have found their way to the end tables in the living room.

Last year I had fun putting together place settings for just us two and this year was fun doing the same for the four of us. One really neat thing is that this year we used both of our maternal grandmothers' china!  And I went ahead and made two more "gobblets" using some of the "things I'd do differently" that I wrote about last year.

Set up and photo-ready a few hours before The Moms arrived and dare I say, several hours before dinner was served,

All set!  See the pilgrim buckle homage?  Ha!

I decided to make special Thanksgiving napkins and found this pretty aubergine linen.  I found a tutorial for easy, crisp, mitered corners and just love how they turned out. They were fiddly and sort of time consuming, but man they sure look nice.

One of my early pins for Thanksgiving was a centerpiece similar to this one that I made from an antler I found in the forest last winter, pine and fir cones from the property, a turkey feather Eric spotted on the road our 2nd autumn in the Bitterroot, and cedar bows I ordered from a local florist.  I keep a thrift store list on my phone and found the wooden bowl this spring.

It was so nice to smell the cedar.

So all this stuff on the table meant that we served the food buffet style on a table in the kitchen.  We also got to use our grandmothers' things for serving.

Left to right, top to bottom: Lefse, cornbread stuffing, lemon almond green beans, roasted acorn squash with bleu cheese, maple apple gravy, cranberry sauce, and butterflied turkey with maple apple glaze.