Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Casual Colorful Thanksgiving Table 2012 and our Thankful List Tablecloth

This is PART ONE of a two part series,
Please CLICK HERE to view PART TWO.


 This year's Thanksgiving table was fun, colorful, and casual.  Traditional colors and fall decor are always so pretty around the table but this year I wanted to add color, color!


We celebrated our family Thanksgiving early because we are going on an exciting short getaway over the holiday weekend!  We enjoyed an entire weekend just staying at home as our little family FIVE cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner last weekend.  



Our entire family cooked in the kitchen for hours, each taking a part in the big dinner preparation.  I will be sharing our menu and details on that in the next blog post.  Because the kids were heavily involved in this years' preparations, I wanted to decorate the table in a fun, kid-friendly style.  




I used our felted ball, jewel toned garland that the boys and I made last year for Christmas as the main color theme and I squiggled it (squiggled?? I don't know what made me just type that word lol) down the table.  To see details on our project making this felted ball garland during last holiday season click here: the Happy Colors of Christmas.



I used our basic white dishes to keep the look clean, simple, and casual.  For small embellishments, I added pops of colorful round dessert plates, placed randomly instead of set in a proper place setting.  





I also added CLOTH cocktail colored napkin squares to each plate to keep the colorful thing going strong.  





The biggest element that contributed to the casual theme was the kraft paper tablecloth.  Instead of placecards, we wrote directly on our tablecloth.


I really exaggerated traditional family roles by using names like "boss" for the him and "homemaker" for the her instead of our real names.  Ready, set, go.  Tell me how (tisk, tisk) bad it is to give gender generalizations.  ;)  







Even our turkey got a placecard!  



For the main centerpiece, I used my plant stand from Anthropologie. The jeweled colors on the plate stand perfectly match the other colors!
It was placed center stage to hold our Roasted Turkey.







During and after our meal we used colorful markers to make random lists of what we are thankful for.  Chris and I have a New Year's Eve tradition that we've done off and on for most of our marriage.  We have a paper roll tablecloth and write/draw our favorite memories for that year.  You can read this post HERE for more info on that!  Anyways, I took that New Year's tradition and moved it to our Thanksgiving table!   




We had such a fun time brainstorming and sharing!

(Cameron)








A collection of our thanks



Yes, Titus wore this mask the entire day!  More on that on the next post. ;)




Apparently Titus is thankful for Santa Claus.  

 







When we completed our artwork and lists of gratitude, 
we each took turns sharing with one another. 


This next moment was truly a PRECIOUS MOMENT.  It was one of the moments that can't easily be translated to paper.  Luckily I caught part of it on camera. I'm tucking this memory away for EVER...

 On Titus' turn, in his steady, calm, somewhat flat, but very confident voice, he told beautiful reasons on WHY he was thankful for each of his older brothers.  

His little cherub lips spoke beautiful and clear sentiments about each of his older brothers.  The super cute part was how his mask was on the entire time during this serious talk!  It was so difficult not to laugh as smile as we all watched him. 


This is the moment that I'm so excited to have on camera! As Titus was describing in detail what he loved about his brothers, they were watching him, fully captivated and full of love.


Their face expressions tell it all.



Actually, each boy told beautiful descriptions of what they were thankful for.  They each explained detailed reasons why they appreciated each family member.  These brief minutes were a handful of my favorite that our family five has shared together...ever. 
These are the times when everything feels just right
 and I realize that the little hassles of life are worth it.  


We did enjoy more lighthearted fun too with games of Thumb War.


Our Thanksgiving celebration (before Thanksgiving Day!) was a family hit.  We are super excited for our holiday getaway too.  Last year for Thanksgiving, we took a getaway to Gateway, Colorado.

Here is a collection of our Thanksgiving tables from my blog years:
Table 3: Colorful casual



From our family to YOURS,
Happy family Day.
Happy Day of celebrating abundance.
Happy time of Gathering.
Happy Thanksgiving!



This is PART ONE of a two part series,
Please CLICK HERE to view PART TWO.

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6 comments:

caveman said...

These posts are my very favorite. This moment, and others like it, mean the very most in my life. I truly believe that the way I feel during these moments is exactly how our days in heaven will feel. Thank you so, so, so much for using your gift of writing and amazing knack for photography to perfectly capture these moments. Oh, and thank you for creating these moments too!!

Randi~Dukes and Duchesses said...

I love your colorful table and I love the notes on the tablecloth! My little guy wrote on our paper tablecloth and I ripped the piece off to stick in the scrapbook ... I love memories like that!

The Tuscan Home said...

What a beautiful memory you've created for your family. You are so talented, Lisa! Every little thing speaks love to me. I always enjoy your posts. Thanks for sharing! xo ~Liz
P.S. Your pictures are so beautiful, love all the table ideas, I'm going to have to copy this in the future. :)

Marlis said...

You are creating the most precious memories for your family. How wonderful that the boys will grow up with these. Love love the felted balls! How great to pull the colors fro these. And to use kraft table.. who knew it could look this great.. xo marlis

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love the craft paper on the table and the idea of writing messages of gratitude on it is genius. I can't wait until next year to try this out.

Unknown said...

I like this a lot. Thank you for sharing. I'm always looking for upcycles like this. In the end, you don't know it was a shipping pallet to begin with!
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