Thanksgiving Inspiration

This time next week, we will all be recovering from turkey-carb-veggie-pie Thanksgiving hangover. Days like these are my favorite and up until very recently, have been handled by my extended family. This year, it's different. It's my day with my immediate family of four. That makes it my day to plan, purchase and execute. 

So I just started thinking about it... today. I immediately went to my visual inspiration board of choice, Pinterest, to begin my search began. First up was home and table decor inspirations. Here is what I came up with:

From L to R clockwise: votives inside mini pumkins, Indian corn wreath, heirloom tablecloth, my traditional fall tablecloth and thankful tree.

After listening to our friend Amy of ABCD Design at this week's Momtrends holiday event, she reminded me to use this season's trend of mixing and matching my china. She also shared a little trick about keeping the flowers out of the eye line of people when they are sitting at a table. I think these will be my inspiration for flowers and I will enlist my daughters to arrange a few themselves!

Image from epicurious

Next up in my planning is the food. I am Southern and always prepare foods that are comfortable for me to cook and eat. My mom and grandmother always prepared such wonderful feasts, it is hard for me to imagine Thanksgiving tasting any better! Here is my menu:

 

All photos from my holiday Pinterest board.

• Turkey (thank you Whole Foods)
• Country ham (thank you Newsom's Country Ham)
• Green bean casserole
• Rice casserole
• Stuffing
• Cornbread
• Sister Schubert's rolls 
• Cranberry sauce
• Pecan tassies
• Pumpkin pie

It's a rather large menu but I'll make small portions and we have house guests coming the next day for the weekend. They'll be plenty to share for day after: breakfast (ham biscuits & pecan tassies), lunch (turkey sandwhiches & green bean caserole) and dinner (Thanksgiving dinner again!). 

Well off to make my orders (rush delivery, of course)! What are you serving at your Thanksgiving dinner?

Comments

[Poppa C]

No mention of 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau ? Vous devriez avoir honte !

Your extended Texas family misses you and yours ... menu sounds familiar but left off Gran's asparagus casserole!