Thanksgiving Potluck with Friends

This week’s holiday came a bit early for us yesterday as we shared what we lovingly refer to as “Friendsgiving”, a Thanksgiving celebration with our closest friends.  I’m moving a bit slow this morning after hours spent cheers-ing, playing games, and carrying on over loads of food.  I stuck to a ‘gilded nature’ look by mixing lots of gold with natural elements.  I spray painted some leaves and branches in my favorite gold, I mixed sparkly gold mini-pencils with DIY kraft notebooks for the name cards and the favors (which I’ll be sharing here tomorrow!) and layered together wood serving dishes with gold and white ones.

It worked well with each person contributing a side dish or dessert, because I was able to spend time putting decorative touches on things and less time in the kitchen.  We did make the roasted turkey while our friend, Eric, fried one. We had a bar set up with two signature cocktails – both from Snippet and Ink – the  Pear Rum Blush and The Ginger Bourbon Fizz.  They were so good!

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Friendsgiving is always done in potluck style which can seem wonderful, but can also be difficult to manage if you’re not prepared.  I set out a table full of trivets, breadboards, and cake stands so that everyone’s dish could have a home at the table, the differing heights of the stands helps more to squeeze in than what could sit on the table otherwise.  The vintage breadboards that I use as trivets, provide a bit of elevation for hot dishes.

We had the stocked bar with our two signature drinks already mixed into carafes so guests didn’t have to play mixologist.  Confetti gold tumblers and birch straws were a fun mixture of the gilded and the natural.

There are a ton of fun ideas here to use not only in your Thanksgiving this week, but possibly a friends giving in the future?  What do you say?