Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

October 22, 2019November 18, 2021

October has flown by and the calendar will soon change to November when we start to plan for one of my favorite days of the year, Thanksgiving. Today you’ll see how I set a table for Thanksgiving and get Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas from a fabulous group of blogging friends.

This year I am especially thankful as I have lived with with lung cancer for going on three years. I hardly mention my cancer on my blog but it’s there and it’s a constant worry and uncertainty in my life. This gal is grateful to be celebrating Thanksgiving again this year.

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Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Today’s Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas is a Pinterest challenge that I’m sharing along with a group of blogging friends. This is a monthly challenge hosted by Cindy from County Road 407. Each month Cindy picks a picture from Pinterest and challenges our group to recreate the look.

Last month our group created Fall Tablescapes and I got so many decorating ideas from the ladies who participated.

Many thanks to Cindy for hosting this challenge!

If you arrived here from Decorate and More with Tip, welcome! I’m sure that you enjoyed seeing Terrie’s Thanksgiving table. You’ll find a list of all of the participating bloggers at the end of this post. I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone recreated this look.

Our Inspiration for this Challenge

This month we were challenged to create a Thanksgiving Place Setting inspired by this Simple and Elegant Thanksgiving Place Setting designed by Lindsay Brunk.

I liked that this was a relatively simple place setting with a plain napkin and solid colored tablecloth, simple silverware, a pretty place card, and a beautiful fall themed centerpiece.

I’ll have to admit that this challenge had me stumped because I had a feeling that the other ladies would create beautiful printable place cards for their readers and I don’t know how to do that. I finally gave up on the idea of making a place card and went shopping at the Caspari store in Charlottesville where I found pretty much exactly the place cards that I wanted to make. I picked up a package of Caspari napkins and I was ready to set my table for Thanksgiving.

My Thanksgiving Table

Thanksgiving table set with Lenox Autumn dishes, Gorham Golden Ribbon Edge silverware, vintage crystal, and vintage turkeys.

First things first, I’ve only hosted Thanksgiving one time and that’s because my mother’s stove quit working and she was forced to move her Thanksgiving dinner operation to my house. She came with everything made, she just needed my oven. My mother is a great cook and we all look forward to Thanksgiving dinner at her house each year.

Even though my table won’t be used for Thanksgiving Day, I enjoy setting a pretty table and admire it every time I walk through our dining room. We’ve had several guests over recently and they enjoyed looking at my table as well. Even Sherman’s acupuncturist who treats Sherman monthly admire my table before she started poking Sherman with needles.

My Version of the Inspiration Picture

You’ll notice that my table isn’t much like the inspiration picture. What I did include that the inspiration picture has is a table centerpiece, silverware with gold accents, and place cards.

What I didn’t include is a tablecloth and cloth napkins, wheat at each place setting, or a centerpiece with Eucalyptus.

I love using a tablecloth for a formal meal but decided to use place mats instead because I like how they look with my china. Also, I know I have tablecloths that fit this table because my mom gave them to me when she gave me the table, but they are buried in our attic crawlspace, and I didn’t want to have to destroy an upstairs bedroom by pulling out countless crates to locate them.

For my table, I set it with my wedding china and silverware along with vintage turkeys from my collection and elegant turkey place cards from Caspari.

My centerpiece was already in place, a DIY wood box filled with pumpkins, faux Bittersweet, and Sweet Gum seed pods.

Turkeys and Place Cards

Thanksgiving place setting with a Caspari turkey place card and vintage turkey candles.

For my table, each Thanksgiving place setting has a turkey place card and turkeys from my collection.

I love the Caspari turkey place cards that I found at the Caspari store in Charlottesville. They come eight to a package and cost just $4.50. You can also get them from Amazon but they come in a package of sixteen.

Thanksgiving table with a Caspari turkey place card and vintage turkeys

I knew I wanted my place cards to include a vintage looking turkey and I was thrilled with the Caspari store had exactly what I had in mind. The two vintage turkey candles beside my place card were purchased at an antique store long ago.

Thanksgiving table with a Caspari turkey place card and vintage turkey salt and pepper shakers

My mom’s place setting has male and female turkey salt and pepper shaker.

Thanksgiving place setting with a Caspari turkey place card and a beeswax turkey from the Beeswax Candle Company in Lynchburg, VA

My father-in-law’s place has a beeswax turkey purchased about 20 years ago from Beeswax Candle Company in my town.

My husband’s place has another beeswax turkey from the same local shop.

Each Place Setting

Thanksgiving Place setting with vintage turkeys, a Caspari turkey place card, vintage turkey candles, Lenox Autumn dishes, vintage Rock Sharp crystal, and Gorham Golden Ribbon Edge Silverware.

Our inspiration picture used cloth napkins but when I saw these antique gold paper napkins at the Caspari store, I knew that they would look good with my Lenox Autumn dishes, so I used them instead of cloth napkins.

I picked my china out when I was still in high school. Every time my mom and I went to the mall to shop, we went to the china department in the department stores to admire the china.

Thanksgiving Place setting with vintage turkeys, a Caspari turkey place card, beeswax turkey candle, Lenox Autumn dishes, vintage Rock Sharp crystal, and Gorham Golden Ribbon Edge Silverware.

The colors and fruit motif of this Lenox Autumn pattern make it a good pattern to use for Thanksgiving.

My silverware is my wedding silverware, Gorham Ribbon Edge.

My crystal was my grandmother’s as were the placemats.

Even though my table won’t be used for Thanksgiving, I’m hoping that my mother will want to use these place cards on her table. I’ll use the extra cards in the package for Mama’s additional Thanksgiving guests.

Final Thoughts

We never dine in our dining room now that we have a second table and an eating area in our kitchen. That table is larger and the chairs around it are comfortable. This table is an antique that my paternal grandfather bought, refinished, and then gave to my parents. The chairs around it belonged to my maternal great-grandmother. They are pretty but aren’t especially comfortable to sit on.

Antique oak dining room table and chairs with a table set for Thanksgiving.

My grandmother’s cousin’s wife painted the tray as a gift for my grandmother long ago. I always admired it in her home and she let me have it when she moved to a retirement home.

Thanksgiving table set on an oak table with an oak buffet in the background.

I bought my buffet at an auction long ago. The candles on the buffet have a relief of maple leaves and I purchased them at the same local shop where I got the turkey candles long ago. You can read more about the painting on the buffet in my Decorating with Vintage for Fall post.

Many thanks to Lindsay Brunk for this month’s Pinterest challenge inspiration. I enjoyed this Thanksgiving place setting challenge and had so much fun creating my own version which 100% reflects my style.

Next on the tour is my dear friend Julie from My Wee Abode. Julie is a master at creating printables and you are going to not only find printable place cards that you can print for free, but get great ideas for using them in her post.