We do not devote a great deal of time to frou-frou table decorations at Thanksgiving. We cannot agonize over floral centerpieces, high or low. Of course, we will forever haul out the childhood relics – the felt turkey clothespin place card holders and the laminated (though buckled) handprint turkey placemats for Thanksgiving lunch. That is a weird meal we can never quite agree upon: do we fast from breakfast until dinnertime or do we have noontime sandwiches and risk not fully enjoying our evening feast? Considering all the ritual taste tests we make through out the afternoon, this could be quite a problem. Imagine not being hungry at the crucial hour when the sliced turkey is passed around the table? We are a little more concerned with the actual meal than the decorations, although we do gussy up with the good china, the well-polished silver and as many candles as we can light without the smoke alarms going off.
My annual party trick is to hollow out half a dozen apples using an apple corer, and insert candles. The apples act as natural, recyclable candleholders. (I toss them in the back yard for the squirrels on Friday.) The first year I tried this stunt, halfway through the meal, the apples started belching the candles out onto the table. I was using full size candles, too, so we almost had a two-alarm conflagration. I have since learned that smaller candles are better suited to the idealized picture I have in my head. I now use the emergency-type candles found at the grocery store.
There are items that come to the table every year, whether we hold a large gathering or if we are a humble congregation, as we are this year, with just us four. Décor-wise, we have small brown glass turkey candleholders from Williams-Sonoma that hold individual and very skinny, highly drippy candles for each place at the table. There is the score of sterling napkin rings I amassed one year when all the in-laws and offspring and brothers and sisters and first-cousins-twice-removed and neighborhood strays were in attendance. Too bad we are not testing out a newbie love interest this year, I could have used a lot of silver polishing help…
Thematically, we are focused on the food at Thanksgiving; the turkey and the gravy, and the desserts, and managing the timing so all the elements of the meal come out of the kitchen at about the same time we can light candles. I don’t know if we are a bunch of potential arsonists or just your garden variety pyromaniacs – we like holiday meals that are bathed in candlelight. They are not Kodak moments because they are impossible to photograph, and they just delightful to experience. Much awkwardness can be excused by candlelight. Glossing over indiscretions and impossible guest behaviors becomes easier. I suppose, in all candor, I should add that wine flows from sunset onward… There is nothing like the newest crop of Beaujolais Nouveau to make Thanksgiving positively glow!
Here is the crafty bit – skip down a paragraph is you have little interest in spray painting oak leaves. We generally decorate the table with what we can find in the back yard, or at the grocery store. This year we will display some pumpkins and squash from the farmers’ market, because my back yard container garden of basil and thyme just isn’t festive enough. Thursday morning I will pick some pretty oak leaves that haven’t dried out yet, and pop them into the microwave (individually and under paper towels) to quick steam them for about 30 seconds. That dries them out without making them too crunchy or brittle. Then I will rummage in my spray paint collection and pull out some gold and copper metallic paints. In the back yard, on a couple of sheets of newspaper, I will spray one side of the leaves, wait 15 minutes, and come back and spray the backs. Then with a needle and some black thread I will poke little holes and then will string the leaves so they dangle from the non-electrified chandelier that hangs over the dining room table. It holds 8 candles aloft, swaying with the conversation and laughter above the dining room table. It is always draped in old cut-glass chandelier prisms and dangly crystals – we like to gild the lily and add more gewgaws at the holidays. We will have a little twirling display of metallic autumn leaves, and crystals twinkling in the candlelight. And about three quarters of the way through the meal the “dripless” candles with start to shower us with irregular drops of molten wax. We generally try remember where to sit to avoid the scalding cascades.
Welcome back, non-crafters! In the interest of full disclosure – I was trolling some of the gourmet sites online, looking at holiday gift baskets when I discovered that there is indeed tofurky! Who knew? So I don’t have to worry about starving (or grossing out) our Pouting Pescatarian! https://www.tofurky.com/ On the whole, though, Martha seems to have better and more picturesque ideas for non-meat Thanksgiving entrées. https://www.marthastewart.com/274911/meatless-thanksgiving-recipes/@center/276949/everything-thanksgiving
And the clever folks at Food52 also weigh in with some ingenious meatless recipes, in case you have your own Pouting Pescatarian to feed on Thanksgiving.
https://food52.com/blog/8997-for-vegetarians-on-thanksgiving-root-vegetable-pie
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
-Buddha
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