Signature American holidays – even the lesser ones – increasingly involve a pile-on of public decoration, from December’s lights to Halloween’s ghosts and March’s leprechauns and shamrocks.
Thanksgiving, thankfully, remains less on display than its colleagues in celebration. Much of the aesthetic fussing revolves around the holiday’s stage: the table.
China, silverware, glasses and napkins – of course. A tablecloth. An elegant centerpiece.
Formal. Intimidating. Rules.
No singing Santa Claus to plug in, or leering witch to hang on the door.
Stop starching that collar.
Thanksgiving is no festival of madcap, but it shouldn’t be a variation on a theme of taking the SAT, either.
Invoke whimsy. Embrace the spirit of thankfulness cloaking the holiday. Enjoy thyself.
We challenged three lovers of Thanksgiving to hatch their own approaches to the table: Robin Lohre, the owner of Miss Talulah and Talulah Jones boutiques; Evergreen potter Tom Edwards; and me, a clueless guy.
Amusing projects for the kids
A certain vivacious playfulness perfumes Robin Lohre’s stores in Uptown and Stapleton, and she brought her style, which she calls “urban shabby,” to her Thanksgiving table.
“I wanted an all-natural, botanical theme,” she said. “Very earthy. Kind of subtle colors you would find in nature, like robin’s-egg blue on the plates.”
She graces her table with a handcrafted flower arrangement every year, and usually coordinates colors in the arrangement with those on the table. For this year’s table, she placed a faux bird’s nest in the arrangement and filled it with fake robin eggs. On each plate: a lifelike – but fake – mushroom.
When the holiday arrives, the mother of a 20-month-old daughter will get her three nephews to make something creative for the table – this year’s project could be placemats, she said.
Last year, she had them pick gourds from of her garden, hollow them out, place candles in them and used them to light the table. Another year she made a decorative tree and had guests hang leaves from the branches, but only after they’d inscribed the leaves with what they were thankful for during the previous year. She uses the tree – and affixes new leaves to it – for every Thanksgiving now.
“They still really look forward to doing those things together, while the turkey is cooking,” she says. “We go off and do something fun.”
Douglas Brown gets crafty
My 8- and 4-year-old daughters have a much firmer grasp than I on the pleasures of popsicle sticks and white glue, on the uses of yarn and beads, glitter and watercolors.
They’re crafty. I’m not.
My wife? She’s a craftess.
My wife can cobble together a mean Thanksgiving table, something reminiscent of fall but not kitschy, something stirring and fun and tasteful at the same time. Me? I might come up with something reminiscent of decorations for sale at the local big-box store.
But I had an assignment. So off I went. To shop. But I wasn’t hunting for something to buy and plunk down on the table. I was looking for inspiration at the temple for those who practice one or more of the many arts of craftiness: a Michaels store.
And as I wandered the aisles – confused, frustrated, desperate – I arrived upon the entire aisle of plain wooden boxes.
Bingo.
“Yes!” I thought to myself. “I’ll make the women in my family Thanksgiving boxes! I’ll decorate the boxes with things I’m thankful for about them. I’ll fill them with symbols of the previous year’s best moments.”
Inspired, I brought the boxes, some small colored tiles, a tube of glue, and a bunch of acrylic paints home and commenced crafting.
On Thanksgiving day, the boxes will sit beside everyone’s plates. Once we all sit down, they’ll open the boxes and we’ll talk about the year’s bounty of blessings.
The idea: I’ll make them all new ones every year.
The hope: Somebody makes me one too.
A potter’s sense of whimsy
Thanksgiving is the one day a year potter Tom Edwards doesn’t work. “We’re in the gift industry. If you are a potter and you’re not busy this time of the year, you’re going out of business.”
He spends his days making plates and pots, mugs and chalices and bowls emblazoned with a irreverant cartoon dog named Wally. And when Thanksgiving is at his house, he uses the good china, not Wallyware.
“Wally is visually demanding, so when you see something with words, your subconscious wants to read it,” he says. “I don’t want to read the words I’ve been working on all day.”
But every other year, when Edwards’ sister in Denver hosts Thanksgiving, she sets the table with his pottery, “older designs of mine that I like.”
Edwards loves Thanksgiving, especially when the usual cast of family characters is supplemented by newcomers, and the conversations turn lively and long.
And he embraces the humor his unusual pottery brings to the holiday, so long as he’s not the one setting the table.
