A Thanksgiving To Be Thankful For

Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays of the year. It’s full of warm colours, filling foods and friendly faces. Each year, I host a little Friendsgiving, as I like to call it, at my little flat with a group of friends - pot luck style!

This year, I went with a sparkly theme and did a lot of DIY to work with a smaller budget (as last year I blew about £350 on Thanksgiving and had waaaay too much food left over).

What’s on the menu?

A few weeks before the event, I make a Facebook event including all my friends and a poll so everyone can sign up for what they will be bringing so there’s no overlap and the right amount of food (and drink, of course).

This year, everyone brought at least one item and a bottle of wine — so as to make sure there was enough for 10 people. I also supplied mixed drinks and non-alcoholic beverages. You can see our final menu below, although I haven’t mentioned two of the best bits: gravy and cranberry sauce!

Cranberry sauce out of a tin used to be my favourite thing about American Thanksgiving - but I haven’t been able to find any in the UK, so this year opted to make my own, with real cranberries, sugar and freshly squeezed orange juice. You add them all into a pot on the stove, simmer and mash the berries until they are at the desires consistency for your sauce. You can add as much or as little sugar and juice as you like depending what texture - you just need some juice to start otherwise the berries may burn.

My turkey this year was kindly gifted my Morton’s Farm who supply turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas (if you’re in the UK) and all year round if you just want some of the good stuff anytime. They also sell other gorgeous meat products that are free range - such as pigs in blankets, pork stuffing and more.

The delivery that the turkey comes in is sealed in a beautiful Morton’s Farm box with ice packs to keep the turkey (and any other products) cool if you’re not home when the post arrives. Inside the box is a recipe booklet that outlines fun recipes to make and cooking time for any of the items you have received. I found this extremely helpful as I’m not the best at oven timings - and the turkey was dressed in his best (rosemary) and just needed me to add salt, pepper, and rub with butter, so not much additional work to do.

Below is the final product once I had crisped the skin and the turkey was ready to be sliced and served.

Table Decor

The best table decor I’ve found is pretty simple, but a mix of everyone’s fall favourites: pumpkins, pine cones & leaves! If you’re feeling wild - like I did this year - go collect leaves and pine cones from your local parks.

Pine cones are hard to find, so you can either purchase a winter pouperie mix from a craft store or supermarket, or order online (Etsy or eBay are best). You can dry your leaves flat, pressed by heavy books or leave to dry to their own natural shape (as seen in the photo above). You can also choose to go au natural with your leaves or spray paint them. I’ve spray painted mine with matte gold and gold glitter spray paint subtly so that they aren’t overwhelmingly gold, and leave a little bit of the orange warmth of the leaves to show through.

The place-cards are handwritten and were gifted to me by Ishy from LittlePaperMoments who does calligraphy of pretty much anything! I’ve also bought holiday cards and two mugs to give from her, too. She takes custom requests, and one of my cards and cards are customised!

When putting together the decor on the table, I wrap my Kraft paper around the tables (using two strips and covering the middle line of the overlapping paper with the decor) and parcel tape to secure the paper underneath the tables so not visible. I cut small strips of table to hold the overlap in place (don’t worry they won’t show once your decor is on top). Then arrange your candles so that they alternate big and small with a small candle on the end on both sides of the table. Your leaves will sit around the candles forming a star-like shape & fanning outward.

My Kraft paper, Be Thankful sign and small candles were purchased on Amazon, the tall candles were bought at Flying Tiger, small real pumpkins from Sainsbury’s (or any local supermarket) and the sparkly pumpkins from TKMaxx Home. I’ve put the links for everything embedded so just click through.

This year has to be one of the most fun Thanksgiving’s I’ve hosted, and if you made it this far in reading this post, I’ve put a few fun “out-takes” from the dinner for your enjoyment below.