Monday, December 5, 2016

Thanksgiving at the Jungalow and 5 affordable holiday entertaining ideas

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My parents were married on Thanksgiving in 1968 and so every year Thanksgiving is a big shindig for our family — we celebrate their anniversary and Thanksgiving at the same time. My mom and dad usually host and it’s always loads of fun and a big to-do. This year my parents moved into a smaller condo and so I offered to host at our jungalow. While we don’t have the space either to host a big group indoors, I knew we could squeeze quite a few folks into our backyard. So we ordered some heat lamps and hoped for sunshine.

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Here are a things we did that made the evening super special — they were al very easy to pull off — so i thought I’d share!

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1.) We have three fold-out tables so we lined them all the way across our yard. To make the tables look like one long table, I used a bold of fabric from a discount fabric store downtown as a tablecloth.

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2.) Since we had borrowed chairs from friends and neighbors and were using a combo of three different sets of plates, we clustered ‘like items’ together — chairs and plates that were the same were clustered together to make things look more visually cohesive.

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3.) I made the flower arrangements using marigolds as my ‘statement flower’ and cedar sprigs as my filler. The marigolds were $2.50 per bunch so I was able to get five bunches for $12.50 and they are so vibrant and beautiful and they last really well. The cedar sprigs smell divine and made my whole house smell amazing.


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4.) For the food we had a potluck–everyone brought a little something and that meant less work for us — but that there was something there for everyone. 
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(look how Ida happy is at the kid’s table with her cousins!)
   

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5.) We got tiny succulents for each of our guests (they’re $1 each at the Flower Market downtown) and Ida and I spent the evening wrapping them in little fabric cuts (we just used a rubber band). They looked really cute on each plate and our guests loved them!

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We lucked-out with the weather. It was warm (we barely needed the heat-lamps) and a good time was had by all. We may have started a new tradition with Thanksgiving at the Jungalow. :) Stay tuned for a post coming soon with what we did with Thanksgiving leftovers. xx ~j



from The Jungalow http://ift.tt/2gZuIr6

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