I Love Thanksgiving

I do love this holiday but I must admit..this girl is tired..  I  have been cleaning and redoing and getting ready for 2 weeks.  Now I have some cooking and some straightening up to do tomorrow.  Hallelujah my daughter is coming to help on Wednesday..  I am so excited that she will be here.

I did get the table finished today.  It is a challenge when there will be 7 grandchildren mixed in with the adults.  So there is a mixture of glassware and different sized forks but the rest is the same. I tried to keep it simple and natural this year.  Let's have a look...

These next pictures are of our family room table that we have enjoyed all month.

Frankly these could use some editing but I am just too tired and then they would never get posted kinda like the last 2 years.  LOL  So I am making progress here.  Just a little photography tidbit..  The lighting is what makes the difference in these 2 sets of pictures.  The second group I am using natural lighting and to me they look better.  The first group, I have lamps on because there are no windows in this room.  It makes a lot of difference in how pictures turn out.  None of these are edited in any way.  Learn to pay attention to the lighting when you take photographs.  Such a great way to express your artistic talents..

I hope you enjoy seeing my tables.  They have been fun to design and set.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  Enjoy your day no matter what you are doing or who you are with.  All of my children and grandchildren will be here.  This is one thankful and grateful Mama..

Love,
Mona

Thanksgivings Past

Hey y'all....

I was looking through my posts to get the table from last year for y'all to see again and oh my goodness...I have not posted the Thanksgiving tables for the past two years.  I somehow lost some of my confidence about blogging because I am still a simple blogger.  Not a money making or professionally done blog.  That is the way I will keep it.  I really liked blogging a lot better when everybody just did it for the social aspect.  But I digress.

Learning to blog pushes me to learn tablescaping and also photography.  I love to see great photos on a blog..

So, without further ado.  

Here is my table from last year.  I had a hard time with wanting to really do anything because my beloved Aussie Bonnie had died in late September so I was just happy to have pulled it off at all..  My husband was so impressed with the floral arrangement.  I wish I had better pictures but at least there are a few..

Here is the Thanksgiving from 2015 that we did on our newly built porch.  I really enjoyed this one.  I hope you like it.  I will see if I can find a few more pictures to show you..

 
this is my favorite..I have diligently prayed over all these children and grandchildren for years and to have them all in one room as I pray for them in person...well, it means everything to me..

I can't believe I never posted these pictures before today.  I hope you enjoyed a look into our Thanksgivings of past years..  I don't even have a picture of the dessert tables from either year.  What was I thinking??  LOL

Thank you for stopping by..and Happy Thanksgiving prep..

Love, 

Mona

Streets of Gold

This time of year around my hometown, the streets, sidewalks and the grass beneath the ginkgo trees turns golden....

if you look closely, you can see leaves falling as I photographed

and a few Thanksgiving scenes..

I added a lot of brass and copper touches to Thanksgiving this year..it has been so fun looking for just the right pieces...and I will carry this over to Christmas decorating..

This little reindeer just could not wait until after Thanksgiving to make an appearance...

Now I must get busy clearing out my kitchen and setting it up for the big Thanksgiving meal cooking.

I hope your Thanksgiving week is wonderful and filled with thankfulness...remember that it is about family and being thankful...NOT shopping...plenty of time to do that later.....

Love,
Mona

The November Dishes

There is no better way to begin the month of November than a beautiful tablesetting with my brown transferware.  It surely says late fall to me..

Just a short update..the glasses are no longer..lol  I replaced them with Antique by Lenox in brown.

much more elegant, I think...

the new glasses

Here is the older post..

Every November I start using these brown and white dishes as I get ready for Thanksgiving.  This week are the 9 in dinner plates...more like a luncheon plate to me.....or a big salad plate..

I thought I would add these beautiful blue salad bowls to bring out the blue in these plates..  I am just crazy about colored glass and it has been one of my collections for years... I especially like it when it is placed near or in the windows....the way it casts shadows just makes me happy..

Once again, my dishes have a memory...these depression glass plates....candlewick, I think...belonged to my grandmother..  I got them when my Daddy closed out his house about 3 years ago..I really like the texture they bring to the setting....

Acorns and oak leaves to match the border on the plates....

I have lots of these glasses in 3 sizes.... a really good ebay purchase several years ago..They are Old Williamsburg by Imperial..

Just some of my turkeys and an alabaster urn with my Thanksgiving cactus.  and a green metal urn with another cactus..

Simple, but it says November..Brown and white, pewter silverware and brown toile cloth.....acorns and oak leaves...

It seems I have so much to do in the next 3 weeks.  I always get like this about 3 weeks out and think I will NEVER get it all done in time.  Starting to feel a little overwhelmed so I know that tomorrow NEEDS to be a planning day..  I have to get it all laid out and the menu made...Then I will realize just how much I love all of this and every.singe.year.without.fail, I start to feel overwhelmed like this...and every single Thanksgiving goes off without a hitch...and if we do have a hitch, it's usually not a big deal..

How do you go about planning for Thanksgiving?   Maybe I am needing a little Flylady encouragement. LOL

This week, I am joining these lovely parties..

Cuisine Kathleen  on Wednesday

Between Naps on the Porch on Thursday

A Delightsome Life  on Thursday

The Tablescaper on Saturday

Happy Thanksgiving planning!!

Love, Mona