Luxurious Thanksgiving Dinner

I know I'm a little late with this posting, but here it is. So this was my first Thanksgiving dinner as a newlywed. My husband and I hosted the dinner this year. It was pretty much our first time to cook a whole Thanksgiving meal. We consulted various recipes...Bon Apetit, Food Network, Williams Sonoma Cookbook, & old family and friends recommendations. I think we did awesome for our first time. Everything was a hit from our brined turkey in herb butter, garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup, sweet potato mash, green beans & almonds, fresh croissant rolls, corn casserole, cornbread, stuffing and gravy. Desserts included luxurious pumpkin flan and apple pie blossoms with vanilla bean ice cream and salted caramel sauce. We stay hydrated with hot apple cider and red wines. We started cooking at 7am until 4:30pm....dinner was at 6pm. I had 1.5 hours to get dolled up....next year I will try to manage my time better.

My project was the Thanksgiving table decor. I tried not to buy anything new....to prove that lux is all around us. This turned out to be really easy. I just used things from around my house. The tan linen table cloth is the one we use regularly. I just placed a paisley table runner down the center...thankfully it had fall colors. I reused the silver lanterns and ivory candles from my wedding, found a vase full of wheat grass from my upstairs bathroom, filled a basket i found in the garage with some clementines, and pinecones that I found in our christmas decoration box. I looked in our liquor cabinet and took out several bottles of wine and used it both as table decor and for our drinks. I made sure the wine labels had falls colors in it.  I used our existing gold plate chargers, gold napkin rings, goldernrod cloth napkins, clean white plates, silver flatware, and beverage glasses. I placed a single clementine on each table setting to add a pop of orange color. I used an old chalkboard to write our dinner menu on. I then took some extra potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions and placed them randomly around the table and room. Finally, added a small pumpkin and few tea light candles....and voila!!! A festive and "mostly" free Thanksgiving tablescape. I say "mostly free" because I paid $2.00 for a bag of clementines and $1.00 for a  small sweet pumpkin. Frugal entertaining Lux!!!!!!

* Tips:
-Buy plates and serving platters in pure white, no design. This way you can use it for all holiday parties and even daily use. All you do is add color and design through your napkins, florals, tablecloths, etc.
-Use something like a clementine to add color and character on each table setting. I ran out of time but I was going to make small paper leaves and right each guests name on it and insert on the clementine to use as their namecard. It can serve as a placecard and even a party favor. For christmas, place a spring of pine or rosemary...for new years place a colorful glitter rockcandy stick....use your luxurious imagination.

*please excuse the christmas wreath on back wall :) got excited for the next holiday.