Keep Your Thanksgiving Happy—with Color!

No, we’re not going to tell you how to keep everyone’s tummy happy at the table. But what we can do instead is give you tips on how to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome at this year’s Thanksgiving spread.

One of the best ways to express yourself at Thanksgiving—if you’re hosting the feast, that is—is to decorate. You can go so far as to make the holidays an opportunity to update your paint job, or go as simple as adding a tablecloth and matching dinnerware. However you choose to decorate, we want to supply you with the right ideas to make everyone’s Thanksgiving happy in 2014.

Color Coordination

Table settings can provide the key to order and ambience—in other words, they bring the room together. But in order to make plates and bowls function like this, they need to match in color. According to the Bed Bath & Beyond blog, gold is this year’s Thanksgiving color. Check out their ideas for an inviting feast table by combining gold with rich colors like royal blue and white, and patterns like consistent shapes.

Thankful Moments

Use the theme of the holiday for decorating ideas. For Thanksgiving, it means you can make a centerpiece out of being thankful. Ideas range from having guests fill out a “thankful” card as they arrive, to having them hang messages of thanks as ornaments on a decorative tree. You can incorporate the theme of thankfulness into table décor (a tablecloth with the word “thankful”, for example), into wall hangings, and more. Another idea is to hang empty placards on a wall and have guests take a pen and write what they are thankful for directly onto the placards. Find out more ways to use thankfulness to decorate on this magazine website.

Harvest Mantel

Thanksgiving falls at the end of harvest season, making it the perfect holiday for a harvest theme. Things like colored leaves, gourds, and other seasonal vegetables make lovely additions to any décor scene. If you have a mantelpiece, this is the perfect place to add splashes of fall color. The mantel is often the center point of a room, making it a perfect spot to gather decorations. You could purchase all your decorations, or you could hand craft them. This mantel is adorned with paper flowers to give it an autumn feel. You can see more mantel decoration ideas on this website.

What are your Thanksgiving decorating tips?

Whether you’re hosting a Thanksgiving gathering or just interested in giving your home a “harvest” feel this month, the ideas we’ve covered here will help you get there. Cover your mantel with handmade fall flowers, put up a mini tree for thankful ornaments, and laden your table with golden dinnerware. You’ll be sure to please everyone!

Do you have Thanksgiving décor tips? Please share them below! Have you ever chosen a paint color based on a certain season—like Thanksgiving—and given your home a facelift right before the holidays? We want to hear all about it—like if the color worked year round. Leave a comment now and we’ll answer it right away. You’ll start a decorating conversation!