27 november

so about that table.  (warning: if you are a person who is not interested in the mundane details of setting tables, you should skip this post entirely and immediately!)

on monday morning i was moaning about needing a new table cloth.  i only have one cloth that fits my table when the table is fully open, and that one cloth is blue and stripey and well loved and stained like nobody's business and doesn't match anything in the house anymore.  my white hotel cloth - also beloved and badly stained finally developed holes and was moved to the basement to be used for scrap fabric if i ever get myself a new sewing machine.

i had a picture in my head of our thanksgiving dinner table - with a solid cloth in an autumn-y color, napkins with wooden rings, and glass hurricanes filled - some with chestnuts and others with cranberries - lining the center of the table.  but i needed to find that autumn-y colored table cloth.

so i was moaning.  when my mother reminded me that she has oodles of my grandmother's and great-grandmother's table cloths in her hall closet.  i did a little inventory - there were two golden yellow cloths which would have fit in perfectly with my mental picture, but in the end i picked a lovely white  cloth with open-work, adjusting my mental picture - i was suddenly seeing a table full of whites and glass and silver.  simple and lovely.  only when i got home i discovered that the cloth was too short.  

at the last minute, i replaced my hotel cloth, and laid that on the table underneath of my great-grandmother's open-work cloth.  i set the table with our white ikea plates and my grandmother's silver and the bulk glassware i bought many years ago and keep on a high-up shelf in an out-of-the-way closet for just such occasions.  it was simple, and it was lovely.

and for that splash of autumn color - and in homage to my original plans - i filled jelly jars with popping corn (of which i had an abundance in my cabinet, for some reason), placing one above each plate, taped name cards to skewers, and stuck those skewers into the jelly jars to create place cards.

i set the table on wednesday afternoon - a habit picked up from my grandmother early on in life - and so i got to enjoy the scene all day thursday.  it was lovely.

and there you have it, more information than you could possibly have imagined about my thanksgiving table-setting adventure.  (tonight, for our family friday night dinner, i'm trying a bare table with only a table runner for the first time.  don't tell my grandmother - it somehow seems like going without pantyhose - she wouldn't approve.)  

{in other news - if you're having trouble leaving comments on my blog, would you let me know?  several people have mentioned that they're getting error messages when they try to leave a comment.  i'm trying to get to the bottom of this, and would love to know if you're having the same problem.  many thanks!}  ETA: turns out the problem is not unique to this blog and typepad is working on it.  sorry if you're having trouble in the meantime!

Comments

[Grace]

This is not just some average, ho-hum Thanksgiving table, Emily. This is an exquisite, carefully rendered, Thanksgiving table. You totally rock. And I wish we were neighbors so you could give me lessons.

[Grace]

I think I kind of meant to say "exquisitely wrought".
The end.

[erin]

it's beautiful. so so beautiful.

[molly]

i don't know what it says about me, but i was glued to your post about your table.
(we set the table the day before, too. i love it.)

[Laura Hegfield]

I just discovered your blog this snowy January morning...Your images are just lovely.