A Thrifty Thanksgiving: Making a Classy Thanksgiving Table on the Cheap

First, I'd like to wish a "Happy Thanksgiving" to all of you in the U.S.

I thought that this would be a good holiday to not only thank the Good Lord for the blessings in my life, namely my children, husband and the fact that I was lucky enough to be born into a country where food and water are readily available for me to eat and drink, but this would be a good time to share a kind of special "Thrifty Thursday" with you all.

Namely, I wanted to share how you can swing a holiday on the cheap, with a little thinking in advance, and no one would ever know that it was "cheap" for you to swing.

Above is the shot of our Thanksgiving table this year.  With the exception of the food, table runner and pot holders (which I made all of those...well not the base ingredients, but you get the idea *laugh*) and the centerpiece (which I'll get to in a second), everything else on the table was purchased used from thrift stores and yard sales.

The french white plates I found at the used store a while back for .50 a plate.  I bought four to use for "fancy holiday" place settings as you can't go wrong with white.  The Corelle casseroles that I'm using as serving dishes I got at a yard sale for .50 each (complete with lids) or I already had in my collection of casserole dishes for years.  The Corelle platter my turkey is being served on my husband and I ran into at a used store a few months ago for 5.00...I kind of didn't want to spend the money but I've been looking for a Corelle serving platter for a LONG time, so I was thrilled to have it so I could get rid of the huge, clunky, and impossible to store serving platter I had previously.

The bowl the rolls are being served in?  Thrift store find for 1.00.  The tablecloth 2.00 at a thrift store.  You get the general idea.

Now, I did not buy all of these things at once, far from it. The tablecloth alone I've had for at least six years. It's taken me a while to accumulate enough to have a holiday table that pretty much matched (the Tupperware gravy boat I will not part with for the sake of matching unless I find a Blue Cornflower patterned one, sorry to say.  That thing keeps gravy warm for hours).  I use all of these things from day to day as well, with the exception of the plates.  Changing one thing at a holiday table, believe it or not, can really help to make a holiday special.  So, my advice would be if you are looking for a way to spiffy up your holiday?  Buy white plates and just go from there to decorate because you can use white for every single holiday I can think of and just change up the other decorations around it.

My centerpiece was built in a basket tray I bought at a used store for .50 a long time ago and I use for everything from harvesting stuff from the garden, hauling treats for hot cocoa or something on to using for a centerpiece like this.  I've gotten to a stage in my life that if I have something in my kitchen I want it to be able to perform multiple tasks if possible.  I have a small kitchen to begin with and then adding in my utilitarian nature...well I like multi-taskers.

The gourds were a great find that I ran into at the regular grocery store yesterday as I ran in to get the bare minimum of groceries for next week.  They had big bags of gourds marked down to 1.00 a bag (probably due to the holidays being pretty much over), so I bought them.  My original plan had been to harvest different fake flowers from different fall themed arrangements I have around the house, but this was quick, easy, and my kids loved playing with the gourds all day, so it was worth it, I think.

And that's another bit of advice I can lend.  When shopping with the holidays in mind, shop a year ahead if possible.  Sounds odd I know, but things like tablecloths, dish towels and decorating things go on clearance after the holiday has passed and it is a wonderful time to pick things up for the next year cheap.  Just be sure you label them and box them where you can find them the next year so you don't forget what you have.  And yes, I do in fact shop the sales at the used stores right before the holiday hits (a lot of thrift stores, at least around here, will have buy one get one sales or 50 to 70% off sales to help liquidate holiday themed donations).

I, honestly, don't keep a lot for any holidays other than Christmas (since we use a fake tree and such) and Halloween.  Halloween and fall tend to get kind of lumped together, so when Halloween is over the fall decorations roll over into Thanksgiving decorations.  I tend to use pine cones (like the one seen in the arrangement above) for fall and winter arrangements, so they do a lot of duty around here in the way of decorating.  I harvest a lot of pine cones from my own yard, even, to help fill space in some areas.

I normally try to buy a live wreath on Black Friday weekend for 5.00 or so, but this year I think I'm just going to harvest some pine from trees in my yard and see what I can make instead as I don't have the money to waste on something like that right now.

But I mainly wanted to do this post to just post up some encouragement.  Just because you are broke doesn't mean your holiday table has to be boring even if you are reusing a lot of things you use from day to day.

Enjoy your holiday everyone and I hope you all found things to be thankful for today!