I love Thanksgiving. It's about giving, not getting, and it only involves one day of family drama, not a whole season. It's also a day when nobody minds if you approach the table with equal attention to the high and the low. The good linens come out, the silver platters come down from the top shelf, and the flowers take their cue from the oranges and ochres of fall. But it's also a time when I pull out my Spode Woodland china and scatter pumpkins and gourds across the table. I haven't yet fallen prey to my desire to arrange flowers in a cornucopia, but there's still time. Here are a few of my favorite Thanksgiving table setting ideas, using the pieces I return to every November, and each of them works well whether you are seating six or twenty.
Start with the tablecloth
The tablecloth sets the palette for everything that goes on top of it, so this is the place to be a little brave when it comes to color. A linen with a pattern or a deep color makes plain white dishes look fabulous, and it makes your grandmother's patterned china feel intentional rather than busy. I'm equally partial to a beautiful white damask or linen cloth.
Some of my favorite linens are offered by Summerill & Bishop, the London homegoods shop that began in Notting Hill as the dream of two best friends who loved gathering people around a table. Their Dahlia linen tablecloth in red and purple brings late-harvest colors of a November table - but adds a shot of deep purple to mix it up. If you like a little more pattern, the Schuyler Samperton tablecloth in Woodley, Tramanto makes the whole setting feel like a table your very chic Southern grandmother might have put together.
Build each place setting in layers
Layering is the simplest way to make every place a source of delight. Start with a charger to anchor the place. Our Carnation porcelain charger is made in Faenza, one of the great centers of Italian ceramics. I love the way these traditional plates look stacked on a Thanksgiving buffet, nodding to holiday colors on the Christmas table, or on the breakfast table every day.
Add to that a dinner plate in the same pattern or mix plain white with something with more going on. My friend Christopher Spitzmiller's marble dinner plate in brown uses a rich brown marble glaze against a clean white field, just right for a hunt supper or a casual Thanksgiving lunch. Top it with a salad or dessert plate, and finish with a linen napkin folded simply on the plate or tucked to the left of the forks. The Summerill & Bishop Broderie Anglaise linen napkin works with almost any cloth. If you are lucky enough to own monogrammed antique French damask napkins - mine were all found in the marché aux puces and bear initials that are not my own - use those.
Every fall since my children were small, I have put away my blue and white Herend plates and brought out my collection of Woodland Spode. It is often thought of as Thanksgiving china if you only use the turkeys, but if you turn your attention to the many other woodland creatures in the collection, it feels autumnal for the whole season. My collection has rabbits and springer spaniels, a fox and a pheasant, and I love that no two places at the table match. If you are starting a collection of your own, the rabbit, red fox and pheasant plates are a lovely place to begin, and the pheasant salt and pepper shakers make a sweet pair for each end of the table.
Give the turkey a proper platter
The turkey ends up being the centerpiece of the serving table and deserves a platter that can hold its own. The Spode Woodland turkey platter is the classic, and even though I only use the matching turkey gravy boat and ladle as decor, nestled among the gourds and floral arrangements, I love that it adds a little cheekiness to mix.
If you're going for a less traditional, more casual vibe, I think Italian splatterware from Puglia is a great choice. All of our rose and brown splatter pieces look great on a fall table. Mix it up with our pomegranate serving platter for passing the turkey and scatter fresh pomegranates cut in half along the edges of the dish to add color . My family has stolen a tradition from my sister's family and starts the day with raw oysters flown in from Nova Scotia. Shuck raw oysters with our high polished bronze oyster knife and serve them over Sonic ice on our medium copper tray. If you're a ostreophage, our blog post Preludes to Thanksgiving has a few ideas for your first course.
Serve the sides family style
Serving part of the meal family style creates connection between everyone at the table and gets the conversation going. I start with a buffet in the kitchen, where the turkey, sweet potatoes and my mother's Southern cornbread dressing anchor the table. But I reserve the green beans, rolls and cranberry sauce for passing at the table. Our splatterware bowl in brown and white is small enough to pass easily. Our large mochaware bowls are a great addition to an autumnal meal, with their earth-and-sky colors and swirling patterns, thrown by one of the few potters in the country keeping the mochaware tradition alive.
Keep the flowers low
The one rule I never break for any seated meal is "keep the flowers low." Your guests should be able to see each other across the table, and if you keep arrangements below eye level when everyone is seated (under 12 inches), the conversation keeps flowing. I have a round table in my dining room, and even though I obey this cardinal rule, I do love to add different heights below the central arrangement by placing smaller arrangements in our hand blown wine rinsers in the white space between the center of the table and the place setting.
Our mochaware urn vase in persimmon filled with dahlias and a few branches of turning leaves is about as autumnal as it gets and works well as an a low-profile accompaniment to the taller centerpiece. For a longer table, use three of Giglio Ceramics' small ceramic gingko planters hand made in Italy and embellished with delicate ginkgo leaves. Our fall flower tips blog will give you a few more ideas for arranging fall flowers.
Light candles at more than one height
Candlelight makes everyone look good, and there's something about lighting them in the late afternoon that feels so cozy. Mix the heights of your candle holders to give some asymmetry to your table design. Our maple stick candles are hand cast from real maple sticks and poured one at a time in the hills of North Carolina from 100% beeswax, so they look like branches brought in from the woods. Set four of The Floral Society's 18 inch tapers in saffron yellow around a central arrangement for height without blocking anyone's view, and stagger them in turned wooden candle holders in tall and extra tall. Then arrange a few hand-blown tortoiseshell votives between the plates for a low, warm glow.
Put a place card at every seat
Place cards save the host from directing traffic, and they allow you to minimize the damage that might be caused by your great uncle's strident political views or your husband's aversion to your boring second cousin. Our bronze walnut place card holders serve this purpose well. Hand cast in a mold made from an actual walnut, they pair nicely with our gilded catfish place cards and make a sweet keepsake for guests to take home.
Liberty of London fall party crackers bring whimsy to the mix, and I place one on every plate so we can pop them open when dessert is served. They are tied with velvet ribbon, and inside each one is a silly trinket, a paper crown and a joke.
And if you are a guest this year rather than the host, the sterling silver wishbone by my dear friend, the artist Helen Bransford, is one of my favorite gifts for the person who has done all the cooking. It is a reminder of childhood holidays, when the cousin who got the long bone was sure to get a wish.
Thanksgiving table setting questions
How far ahead should I set the Thanksgiving table?
Set it the day before if you can. The cloth, chargers, plates, glasses and candles can all go out on Wednesday, so on Thursday you only need flowers, place cards and the food.
Where does everything go in a Thanksgiving place setting?
This reminder might be insulting to the hostess for whom the order of the table setting is second nature, but I swear I have to look these rules up every year. Forks go on the left, and the knife and spoon on the right, with the knife blade facing the plate. The water glass sits above the knife with the wine glass to its right. The napkin goes on the plate or to the left of the forks, and the bread plate sits above the forks.
Can I mix different china patterns on one table?
Yes, and in some setting I like this approach better than a matched set. Keep one thing consistent, such as the color family, the tablecloth or the glassware, and let the plates vary. Spode Woodland is made for this, since every plate in the pattern features a different animal.
How tall should a Thanksgiving centerpiece be?
Keep it under about 12 inches, or below eye level when your guests are seated, so everyone can see across the table. If you want height, use tall tapers instead of tall flowers.
Find everything in one place
Our Thanksgiving collection gathers our favorite pieces for the holiday, from linens and Spode Woodland to place cards and party crackers. For the whole season, browse The Autumn Table, and when it is time to start thinking about Christmas, The Holiday Table is ready for you. If you are in Nashville, come see it all in person at our shop in Paddock Place on White Bridge Road. We would love to help you set your table.
