Thanksgiving Decor

There will not be a large family gathering at our house this year due to Covid. We are not going to act like "Covidiots" either and hazard traveling. However, while remaining safe at home, I can still decorate and bring the ambience of the season to our dwelling. In a Zoom meeting with the SoCal grandkids this week I took my iPad around the downstairs and we counted turkeys - seven in all. Five were stuffed but not with bread stuffing. They were pillowy soft and huggable because their insides were polyester fluff. The first two turkeys were on the dining table, flanking a spiral table runner and three glass candle holders filled with pomegranates and tangerines. Take a peek at each of them up close and personal. 

 

On the nearby china hutch hangs an autumnal colored wreath with green and gold jingle bells and unique, orange, pear-shaped bells. Hmm. That bow gets a bit more bedraggled each year. Apparently my fluffing skills are somewhat wanting in 2020.

Continuing on around clockwise to the living room, I swapped out some Halloween decor for two pilgrim pumpkins, sitting on a pumpkin placemat, against the same backdrop of gourd-filled vases from Halloween. Zooming in you see the smiling faces of those girl and boy pilgrims.

The hearth had a few updates. I removed the black and orange pumpkins, turned the fabric Jack o' Lanterns so their toothy grins no longer faced the room, and added the gold-guilded papier-mâché pumpkins. Robin and Dan painted those pumpkins as elementary-grade school-age kids in a workshop sponsored by an unfinished wood furniture store.

Still wondering where the rest of those turkeys are? Continuing to the right of the hearth is our antique cash register with three turkeys #3, #4 and #5 roosting there. Two stuffed ones are on top. One itty bitty one made from a walnut and silk leaves is nestled between two other small pumpkins on the lower marble shelf.

Circling on around, perched on a chair by the front door is the biggest, plumpest turkey of the flock, #6. Actually, to be correct, a group of wild turkeys is called a flock but a group of domesticated turkeys is call a rafter. So he is the biggest one of the rafter.

A set of GIVE THANKS blocks is displayed on the second china hutch, on the wall opposite the fireplace. I bought these hand-painted blocks at a craft fair and never removed the cellophane wrap that was part of their packaging. They pack away and redeploy much easier that way.

Above the hutch I hung a quilt called Pumpkin Time. I made it this month and have a DianeLoves2Quilt blog post about it dated 11/22/20 . From a distance it looks like a big number "3" but is really a fence and pumpkin lined path to a cottage.

 

With an about face, on the floor behind the couch is a rug I bought this year with a red car carrying a pinecone as a variant on the red pickup with a Christmas tree theme of late. I think the pinecone and holly allow me to get dual holiday purposing out of the rug. Another Thanksgiving quilt called Gobble can be seen hanging on the back of the couch. Also made for this season, I published a DianeLoves2Quilt post about it dated 11/8/20. If you are truly serious about counting turkeys, there are thirteen squares in this quilt made with turkey print fabric. Each square has about three turkeys, give or take, so thirty-nine turkeys anyone? Now, that's a full rafter! If the grandkids were here in person we might count these but I am not up for the philosophical discussion on how to count a partial turkey; so, those birds can just gobble quietly amongst themselves behind our backs on the couch while I ignore them. 

A third wallhanging I quilted for this season I called Harvest Moon. It too has its own blog post in DianeLoves2Quilt dated 11/9/20. I displayed it on the back of our wing chair between the dining room and living room.

But where is turkey #7? Turkeys know better than to venture into the kitchen, so this wooden one stopped right before entering the kitchen at the small table next to the doorway. Hmmm. Looks like that teapot lamp could use a bit of a polish, putting a whole other interpretation of the phrase, "polishing the silver for Thanksgiving".

Pumpkins are not so skittish about the kitchen. These two sit on my kitchen counter to bring some Thanksgiving into there. The one on the left has a little crystal in each of the spirals that sparkles when a candle behind is lit. Unfortunately, every time we sat down to eat or read we caused the table to vibrate a bit and the crystals jiggled, making an annoying and distracting sound. I moved the metal/crystal pumpkin to the more stable tile countertop. The pumpkin on the right is actually a light infused Jack-o' Lantern but, once again, I get double holiday duty by turning the grinning face around. I flip the switch on throughout the day and evening to add a bit of a festive air.

Here is my more successful attempt at pumpkin pies – far better than my misadventures with Frank's birthday pie in my 11/11/20 post and my sugar and heat challenged pie in my post for 4/4/20. I fear I am a more consistent decorator than chef!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!