Thanksgiving 2010

This past Thanksgiving, I was asked to put together my church's annual Thanksgiving dinner. I only had 8 days to get everything together and was on a very tight budget. Also, even though we had over 150 people attending, I still wanted it to feel special and like a family gathering. We had 7 rows of tables set up and each row had their own plates of food. Turkey, stuffing, yams, salad, rolls, mashed potato's, etc.

To keep the cost and work down to a bare minimum, I layed brown paper down instead of table cloths. This allowed me to draw place mats for each person for a fun special touch. The plates and cups are from Von's and I thought the orange/tan color was perfect. The napkins are from the Dollar Store and they were green and cream. I loved the fall colors!


Because there would be so many kids and we all know how restless kids can get, I made Pilgrim Hats out of black paper cups and construction paper. These held the crayons and the brown paper served as their drawing board, as well as a table covering. These turned out to be a huge hit!


For the centerpieces, I cut some branches off of trees, put moss in glass vases and had the children of our church trace/cut out their hands and then write on them what they were thankful for. Another way to incorporate children into your festivities!

Additional touches to the table were these print outs I found online. There were two per row.

Now I only have 5 more months to decide what to do for this year!