Stories from "An Oklahoma Girl": Thanksgiving

This year, D and I hosted our very first Thanksgiving! We had both of our families over to our house (a total of 17 people!)

My Dad is a wonderful cook, and has always made our Thanksgiving dinner, and was nice enough to help me plan, shop and cook both Wednesday and Thursday. Below is a picture of my favorite chef on Turkey Day!

Again, the lack of living room furniture came in handy - my father-in-law brought me extra tables and chairs from his work, and we were able to just extend into the living room.

Given the number of people, I decided to do a buffet, on the kitchen counter, and have a separate dessert table in the living room. Apparently, everyone was concerned about there being enough treats, and brought extras, because we ended up with 14 desserts for 17 people! (Clearly no one left hungry.)

My mom was a huge help planning the table decorations. We decided to go a little glitzy. Below is a picture of each place setting. We used a gold charger, and a combination of my wedding china as well as my mom's. We found the purple plate on a huge sale at JC Penny's (so if anyone ever needs to borrow 18 purple plates, just let me know!) The napkins were another sale at Bed Bath and Beyond. And they were topped with gold pine cones from Hobby Lobby. Between my mom and I, we had enough wine and water goblets for each person. My favorite part of the place setting, however, was that we used my grandmother's sterling silver.

My mom found these super awesome glittery pumpkins and corn at a boutique near by.

I spray painted clear glass candle holders as well as some cheap-o Styrofoam pumpkins from Hob Lob, using a gold metallic spray paint. I think they turned out pretty cute, and for a fraction of the cost of actual gold decorations. I also purchased clear glass votive holders, and using clear scrapbook tape, added some gold ribbon to the bottoms.

Here are a couple additional pics of the table:

The food turned out great. We were a little bit worried about the turkey being done, but the button finally popped up right before we were going to cut into it to see if it was finished. (Coincidentally, I got three meat thermometers for Christmas this year - apparently people saw a need a decided to fill it!) Here is D "fake" carving the turkey (we actually used an electric carver).

I set up all of the food buffet style in the kitchen. I think it turned out fine, though next year, I might consider covering the counter with a table cloth and using blocks to provide some height variation.