Merry Thanksgiving Celebration

We just said goodbye to my brother and his wife, as they headed back up to Portland for a couple days until they fly home to Texas.  It was a wonderful time visiting with them and I'm so thankful that they were able to be here for Thanksgiving!  Next year, they'll stay in Texas for Thanksgiving and come out here for Christmas.  (And hopefully we'll get to see them once in between now and then!)

Thanksgiving was spent relaxing and eating very well.  (And of course, looking at Black Friday ad's).  The day before Thanksgiving, I busily prepared our home for 11 family member's sitting around our table.  Oh, and this happened, too:

"Oh no she di'nt! ... Oh yes, yes she di'id!"

That's right.  We got our Christmas tree the day before Thanksgiving.  Since Jeremy and Shannon couldn't be here for Christmas, we decided to do our gift exchange with them at Thanksgiving - because I'd rather give a gift a month early and give it in person, than just mail it!  So, we thought it needed to be a lil' Thanksgiving and a lil' Christmas up in here for our 'Merry Thanksgiving' Celebration. :)

Pay no attention to my frumpy jeans... :)

Christmas Tree 2011

Wait a minute...this looks familiar...

Christmas Tree 2010

Christmas Tree 2009

Hmm.  Weird.  :)

Back to this year...

Since this was my first year hosting, I had a little fun getting the table set all pretty for the feast!  The week before, I was in my favorite thrift store - the OSU Thrift Store in Corvallis - and had found this awesome little bag of clothespins for 50 cents:

I had never seen little end pieces like that.  Immediately, name card holders came to mind and there was exactly 10 clothespins in the bag that had those end pieces (which is how many I needed to sit at our table.  Ezekiel made 11 people, but obviously I wasn't making his high chair a place setting!).

Call me Grandma, but I'm a sucker for lace and doilies.  I just am.  So I set the table with gold chargers and doilies for everyone.  To keep in theme, I made name cards with shipping tags with doilies cut and glued on.

I tied the napkins with some crochet (? I think?) thread I also found at the OSU Thrift Store for cheap.  It came on the cutest spools.  I know it's a common way for it to come, but I just thought they were adorable (there were 2 shades of red) and I couldn't help but pick them up as well.

I found myself searching my linen closet for a long enough table cloth for having all three leaves added to extend my table...and to no avail.  I didn't own such a long tablecloth.  So what to do?  Grab the nearest light-weight bed cover!  Enter: new and beautiful tablecloth. :)

I just covered it with one of my favorite yellow lacy tablecloths and no one (except mom, who bought me the bed cover) knew that it wasn't a tablecloth! :)

That, and this, was how I decorated for Thanksgiving. :)  Now, back to the actual celebration!

Once the tree was lit, Zeek sat there, 5 feet away from the tree, just staring at it for a good 10-15 minutes before he s.l.o.w.l.y crept towards it to check it out a little better.  He's been really good with it so far!  Not too interested in playing with it - just gently touches some of the branches here and there.  

Staring at the tree - trying to figure it out.

Gathered courage to get a lil' closer.

Family around a table.  Love.

Gift Exchange!

Cool Melissa & Doug Musical Set from Uncle Jer & Aunt Shannon

My first pecan pie!  YUM!

Big Boy hanging out with Grandma

 Cousin Kaiden marching up and down and up and down the hallway (for like a half hour) and Zeek continually on his trail, only stopping to giggle periodically.  :)

 We had such a lovely Thanksgiving with family.   Looking forward to next year with the Anderson side. :)

Hope yours was just as wonderful!
Do you have any special traditions you do for Thanksgiving?

Love, K