How to Set a Simple and Elegant Thanksgiving Table

Well this has been quite a confused week around here as far as holidays go!

I started the week off Monday announcing the reveal of my Home Depot Holiday Style Challenge room and I’m ending the week today showing you what my Thanksgiving table looks like as part of Bloggers Stylin’ Home Tours, Thanksgiving Table edition. Do you have virtual whiplash??

If you’re coming over from Fieldstone Hill, welcome! Darlene’s style never ceases to impress me.

I haven’t often hosted Thanksgiving since our family mostly lives some distance away and we wind up traveling. In fact, up until this year I have hosted exactly twice and I was VERY pregnant both times. This year, Scott and I are hosting his side of the family and I am both excited about it and VERY unpregnant :)

Now, let’s be honest with each other here – the real star of the Thanksgiving show isn’t the table setting, it’s the food! At least for me. I come from a long line of enthusiastic cooks and eaters and my grandmom, mom, and aunts have always outdone themselves at Thanksgiving. I am drooling a little just thinking about it. So my very first thought when I started to put the table together was, “I must leave room for the food!”

The very first thing I did, however, was put down a dusty blue table runner, softly colored placemats with muted blues and greens, white linen napkins, and our white and platinum china.

How to set a simple, elegant Thanksgiving table with muted blues and greens

I wanted to cluster the decorative items in the center of the table to leave plenty of room for all of the delicious food at either end – you can see I even set out empty platters and bowls to make sure I’d left enough space. Clearly I take this eating business very seriously.

I took cues from the colors in the placemats and kept things soft and muted – grey-green Cinderella pumpkins, dark green squashes, mini white pumpkins, pinecones, stick balls, and a few clementines scattered about for just a touch of color.

I also placed a single clementine on each bread plate and I know a few little girls who will be sitting at my Thanksgiving table who will find this edible decoration especially exciting.

This kind of table setting works for me – easy to put together, natural elements, room for the food, and unfussy. I like a little more quiet in my decorations for Thanksgiving before I fall down the rabbit hole of Christmas decorating. Which, don’t get me wrong, I love, but I like keeping Thanksgiving a bit softer.

I also love the way the greens and pale blues play against my newly upholstered, opposite-of-muted dining room chairs. I want to take them to bed with me at night and snuggle them I love them so much.

All joking aside, I truly am overwhelmed with gratitude for life’s blessings this time of year. As Thanksgiving approaches every year I feel myself turning things over in my head, and the realization of just how many things I have to be thankful for makes me feel a bit choked up. My two beautiful, healthy daughters who make every day that much brighter and who make me want to be kinder, gentler, more giving, and more gracious. My husband, who is a more tremendously wonderful father and husband than I ever could have imagined and brings so much laughter to our lives. Our parents who are unfailingly loving and supportive of us. Good food, a home we love, warmth, friends…I could go on and on. This time of year makes me remember what is often so easy to forget – that while life is not ever perfect, through the arguments, losing of tempers, stress, over-scheduling, and general muck of day-to-day life, there is much beauty to be found if we just stop for a moment and look for it.

I really am so excited to gather around this table with family we love and count our blessings together.

Now be sure to stop by Finding Home next to see what Laura has put together for the tour!

And for links to every stop on the tour, swing by Lindsay’s blog HERE. Lindsay is the industrious organizer of these tours and keeps things running smoothly for all of us!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!