Thanksgiving Part 1: Decor

I've always wanted to host Thanksgiving at my house, however we don't have a formal dining room and the eating are we have is quite small. Unfortunately in this home I will never be able to host Thanksgiving for both my family and J's family. But that's okay...one day!

This year we are actually having Thanksgiving at our home for J's family, since not everyone can make it. This means there will be a total of five people, maybe six, including ourselves. I think we can handle that.

Here's the problem. As excited as I am I'm completely freaking out about everything. In a good way of course. I could have blogged about all of this in one post but that would have been a lot. So I decided to break it down into food and decor. You'll understand why soon, especially after you read the food post. Which leads me to today's post...decor.

Normally I am all over the decor. I know exactly what I want and I know I want everything looking fabulous! For Thanksgiving, not so much.

It's all about this dishes. They are the start of your tablescape. Once the dishes are set, everything else just seems to fall into place. I have FiestaWare. LOVE IT!! I can't say enough good things about it...except for sometimes it's too bright and summery. There is a brown Fiesta plate (which I don't own) and dark green (which I don't care for), and dark blue but that's about has "warm" the colors get. My entire house is based off of browns, golds, deep reds, etc. Fiesta is great for daily dining but not so much for formal dining.

I'd love to have a whole set of dishes like these just for Thanksgiving

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I'll take these in a heartbeat

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Paired with these

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But in reality 1) I don't have the storage for them and 2) how many times will we have Thanksgiving here with 5-6 people to really use them. 

So I guess I'll have to go with my good ol' Fiesta unless I can come up with something else.

When I was in middle school and high school I used to always tell my mom I was going to use paper products because it would be so much easier. She told me I was crazy. But to me, the true meaning of Thanksgiving is to spend time with family and friends and be thankful for what you have. The majority of the time is spent in the kitchen and let's just get rid of one more thing to clean up and use paper! I don't think that would go over very well...

If you host Thanksgiving at your home, what dishes do you use? Your every day dishes? Do you have china? Do you have special Thanksgiving dishes?