It’s turkey time! Soon enough, there will be other holidays to commemorate, but for this week, it’s ALL about giving thanks and enjoying the spirit of the Thanksgiving season. On this page, you’ll find a variety of approaches to decorating your Thanksgiving week table and plating related meals.
Pictured above is a simple meal and tablescape a few days before Thanksgiving. It was a sublime one dish meal, hearty enough to be served on smallish plates. No need for knife or spoon. I’m not a huge tablecloth fan (if you experienced meals on a regular basis with my clan, you would understand why), but for a couple of days I had a taupe matelesse cloth on the table, burlap runner down the middle, woven placemats on top. Beige, brown, taupe, gold. Very sedate color scheme. That allowed the turkey plates to show off and the green napkins and the floral arrangement complimented the turkey colors quite fabulously. The napkin rings? Stretchy bracelets of citrine rocks (citrine is a cousin of amethyst, in case you’re not familiar) from a rock shop in Rolla, Missouri. The rusty/yellow color was just right, as was the touch of nature they added to the tablescape. (The meal was my butternut squash, carmelized onion, Italian sausage pasta dish. Make it with low carb lasagna noodles, if you care to, cut into squares. Here is the recipe for what I call the Best Pasta Dish for Fall/Winter.
It’s not JUST about the Thanksgiving dinner table, you know. Get in the mood to make all your Turkey Week tables attractive and seasonally appropriate.
The picture above is my Turkey Week table for two! You don’t have to wait until you’re serving a crowd to make your table pretty. I had a small sequined Fall table runner that was too short to be effective on a large table, but perfect used sideways on a small one. I had put together a floral arrangement in a metallic-glazed rectangular vessel for the house earlier that week that mirrored the colors in the runner — green ornamental cabbages, orange tea roses, orange tiny straw flowers (almost like orange baby’s breath), lotus pods, and purple alstroemeria lilies, so I brought it onto the table. I swirled some multi-colored battery-operated rice lights on top. (They are hard to see in the picture, but I assure you they added a special twinkle.) Deep brown rectangular woven placemats. Dark green napkins. Dark purple round straw placemats. (I tried putting the plates just on the brown and that just didn’t have the effect I wanted, so I doubled up.) Gold hammered metal flatware. Pumpkin salad plate on top. Quite inviting, I assure you.
The turkey plates made another appearance at Thanksgiving day breakfast. Since a big meal was scheduled for late afternoon, breakfast was simple — sausage cheese balls, a bacon rose bouquet (in the turquoise vase), fresh blackberries, and orange slices. The centerpiece was likewise quite simple. As you can tell, the tablecloth, burlap runner, and the woven placemats were left on from the night before. The pop of turquoise color via the placemats was added to make the morning table a little more cheery and bright. This picture was taken before I added silverware, or perhaps we were heathens that morning (entirely possible) and we ate everything — including the blackberries, without the aid of utensils. You will never know… because I will neither admit nor deny.
I have a friend who is a textile designer. How cool is that? The napkins used on this tablescape are one of her designs. You can learn more about Laura Foster Nicholson and her designs and products here: LFN Textiles I wanted the napkins to really show up, so I folded them and placed them between the bowl and the plate at each place setting. See more of the table below.
I alternated purple and orange round placemats on top of the beige and brown woven placemats, used wood-covered flatware, and flanked the mosaic candleholder with jeweled fruit balls on top of a deep purple table runner. Then I was ready to ring the dinner bell!
The folding of the napkins this way worked particularly well because of the way the design was oriented.
Another option. The small leaf-shaped plates are inexpensive and plentiful in stores in early fall, so I’ve accumulated enough of them to use as bread or small dessert plates. In this tablescape, I have trotted out green flatware, fall-colored stemmed goblets, brown, green, and gold straw placemats (and since I only had four, but five of us were eating, I added one orange one) and dark brown napkins. Wait! I see my salad plates, but what did I use for the main course?
Here it is in action. I used square brown plates that have an interesting paint job on them — interesting because they aren’t exactly solid brown, but a little mottled. Pretty. And so nice with the rest of the table pieces.
And in case you mentioned them elsewhere on the site, here are some of the other tablescapes we have created in the past.
Layers of lace tablecloth, satin placemats, topped with gold flatware, white china, turkey plates, awesome bouquet, and little paisley bread and butter plates.
In the main dining room, the dinner plates were elegant rimmed gold china. Each place had its own individual flower arrangement, in addition to the centerpiece, and the napkins were placed in the turkey napkin rings vertically.
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