Thanksgiving

So I had 18 people for dinner on Sunday. 12 adults and six children ranging in age from two through 13. I was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to all being able to sit down at the table together (thanks to my new dining room set) rather than perching precariously throughout my living room and den wherever people could find a spot. Everyone could sit together. Everyone could share the meal together. Exactly what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. It did pose a few challenges though.

We didn’t have enough chairs. Easily solved by buying some. Check.

Then I didn’t have a tablecloth big enough. A little researched proved (erroneously) that they don’t make tablecloths for my table that would be wide enough. Standard tablecloths are 60” wide. Because the table is 44” wide, 60” wide tablecloths left to little of a drop. So I bought a ton of fabric to make a tablecloth. I thought the table was 96” long – nope. It’s 117”, which meant that the $60 worth of fabric I bought was too short! Not all that big a deal I can use it to make a table cloth for when the table is partially open. I sent Daniel back to the store for more fabric and then spent a good two hours on Friday night carefully measuring, re-measuring and stitching over 4 years of material into a very nice tablecloth. Tablecloth Check.

Then I looked at my piddly little candlestick holders and thought I needed something more impressive looking. So Saturday I popped out to the store in the hopes of finding something holiday appropriates. Something with a Thanksgiving/Halloweeny/Fall theme to it. Imagine my shock when I walked into the store on the 7th of October to discover that I couldn’t buy anything remotely fall like because it had all been cleared away to make way for the Christmas decorations. Good grief! We ended up with candlestick holders that resembled and evergreen branch with pinecones to hold the actual candles. Ummmm definitely Christmassy but paired with orange candles it was suitable. Scratching my head though over the dearth of anything fall like remaining in the stores on the 7th of October!

Dinner was great. We gave thanks. We laughed, we chatted, we drank too much and generally had a blast. The kids had a blast. Despite the wide age differences they all seemed to enjoy one another. We had an adult table and a kid table and while I worried that the kids would feel ostracized I know that they really enjoyed being able to hang together and not be nagged to bits by adults. Everyone had fun. It was just the way a dinner party ought to unfold.