Thanksgivings Past

Thanksgiving has crept up on me this year.  I am in denial that Christmas is right around the corner.  I think it may have something to do with baby showers and birthday parties, but I haven't had the chance to blog nearly as many of my Thanksgiving ideas as I had planned.  

At this point, your turkey is probably defrosted.  Maybe you have baked a pie or two, done the grocery shopping and are mostly ready for the festivities of Thursday.  If you have the basics under control, you may be looking for a few ideas to make your table special and memorable.  Here are some of my favorites from years past:

FESTIVE FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS:

I made this pumpkin shaped flower arrangement a few years ago.  It is easier than it looks.  I just used some wet floral foam (oasis) in a container (this is actually a gravy boat).  I clustered the stems of the flowers in the oasis so that they would form a dense ball.  The stem is attached to a bamboo skewer and into the foam.  

At an earlier Thanksgiving (before I had a blog or a nice camera), I made this enormous arrangement for the buffet table of a family reunion/Thanksgiving dinner.  Again, I utilized wet foam.  I put it in a plastic container inside the hollowed out pumpkin.  I strung cranberries together to make a little garland that I pinned into the pumpkin.  One of my favorite things about of the arrangement was the use of fruit along with the flowers.  I put apples and pears of different colors on skewers and stuck them into the foam.  The flowers came from Costco, which is probably the most economical way to buy flowers (roses there are cheaper than wholesale).   You may have to be a little flexible about what flowers you use in your arrangements if you go that route.  When I did this arrangement, I made smaller arrangements to go on the tables, using  squashes or smaller pumpkins.  I've even seen recently where people have used mini-pumpkins for similar arrangements, using only a couple of blooms for each pumpkins (Anyone have a link to that one?).  Those would make awesome placecards for each setting.

Speaking of placecards, I planned to blog about all of the fun ideas I've used for placecards tonight.  But I'm falling asleep, so I will try and get to it in the morning.  If you are looking for more table ideas, let me know!