How to Set the Perfect Thanksgiving Table

Setting a great Thanksgiving table is something anyone can do with the right tools in their entertaining supplies, a few new additions, and a little bit of thriftiness. Today’s perfect Thanksgiving tables is particularly important to me because today I am sharing with you a way that you can make your table and earn money for your favorite charities in the process.

This month I am partnering with Pure Charity to share about their incredible mission to give back to charities through the holiday shopping that you already happening to be doing. 

What is Pure Charity?

Pure Charity is a simple, but awesome concept for giving back to those causes you care most about. Basically, you install a simple toolbar into your web browser and then it alerts you with a small banner at the top when a store you are shopping with has a partnership with Pure Charity. Click on that little button and you are making a percentage deposit into your Giving Fund. Your Giving Fund can then be applied to the charities that are important to you and that you have a desire to support.

Pure Charity asked me to show everyone what could be done via their partners and gave me a small budget to get started. This month I am sharing ideas for setting the perfect Thanksgiving table, to sharing Thanksgiving recipes with you, and showcasing some fun ideas for keeping the kids entertained. All supplies were ordered through their partners and I have created a Giving Fund for the charities that are most important to our family. At the end of this series, I will share with you just how much I was able to earn through this spending.

How to Set the Perfect Thanksgiving Table

Mix Texture and Color Into Your Basics- I have always had a fondness for my white dishes simply because they match everything that you want to layer on top of them.  (West Elm Napkins)

Spice up your basics with a bold colored napkin in a fresh autumn shade. I love to mix texture in by tying napkins off with scraps of burlap instead of buying napkin holders. If you don’t have any burlap, a piece of twine or yarn would be just as lovely. 

Mix in One New Element to the Tableware- In a perfect world, we would have loads of storage and dishes for every season. Most families just don’t have this type of limitless space in their kitchen. Instead of buying new dishes for each holiday, focus on adding one new element each year to the existing pieces you already have.

My white dinnerware is perfectly paired with these elegant Thanksgiving dessert plates (West Elm Dessert Plates) as a nod to the season and they take up far less room than an entire set of dishes.

Have Your Kids Create the Centerpiece- My kids love helping me in the kitchen and one way they can assist with the Thanksgiving table is to help create the centerpiece.

I have been dying to have a chalkboard in my kitchen and using this as a centerpiece for our table was the perfect excuse for the purchase. Center this chalkboard (Pottery Barn Small Chalkboard) on your table and then give your kids the assignment to fill this with all of the things that they are thankful for.

Once Thanksgiving is over, this will be proudly hanging in our kitchen for all of our family announcements!

Decorate With Nature- Right now there might not be a lot blooming, but if your yard is anything like ours, there are plenty of rustic and beautiful elements that could be added to your table.

I pruned one of my flowering bushes and used the clippings as a filler for three vases.  (West Elm Vases). I love how these branches add dimension to my table and skip the expensive vase fillers.

Add Your Own Personal Touch- Everyone has their own personal touch that they can add to their centerpieces. For you, it might be your mad spray painting skills. For me, it is the ability to knit yarn into leaves and flowers. It might not sound like a very useful skill, but it certainly helps when it comes to fall centerpieces. I relied upon this knitted leaf pattern and these easy garter stitch flowers for knitted embellishments to my sticks.  It will take me awhile to knit all of this, but I promise to share more once it is done!

My husband may or may not have made fun of me when I said the branches needed “whimsical leaves,” but even he agreed that they looked pretty sweet once I finished this project.

After these purchases to dress up my Thanksgiving table, I was able to bank $7.22 in my Giving Fund for my favorite charities through Pure Charity

I hope you love these ideas for setting the perfect Thanksgiving table and I look forward to sharing more about my partnership with Pure Charity in the coming weeks.

I am working with Pure Charity, and Pure Charity has provided me with compensation for these posts. My participation is voluntary and opinions are always my own.

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Published November 06, 2012 by:

Amy Allen Clark is the founder of MomAdvice.com. You can read all about her here.

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