Decorating the Thanksgiving table
Not only the feast, but the manner in which it is served, that makes the holiday board attractive
By Margaret Hill Canfield
In her anxiety to have her menu come up to the highest standard of excellence, the Thanksgiving hostess must not forget her table decorations. The most delightful dinner may be materially marred by an oversight in the matter of decorations.
Never before in the history of Thanksgiving dinners have the color schemes for trimming up the dining-room been so delightful as this year. Each one could form a chapter in itself for originality and absolute newness.
Decorating the Thanksgiving table: A lovely centerpiece
The most ingenious centerpiece imaginable has been designed by a hostess of a neighboring city, who has confided to your correspondent her plans, for the benefit of the readers of this newspaper.
Here are her directions precisely as given by herself: Use a snowy cloth with decoration motif green and white. Select a large, firm cabbage, trim at the bottom to secure a stable standard. Cut off outside leaves until a fresh and beautiful exterior is in view.
Cut across the top in a straight line, scoop out the inside carefully until a good-sized receptacle has been made for an artistic arrangement of various fruits (not forgetting choice clusters of raisins tied on stems with a pale green ribbon bow) — this for the centerpiece.
Dissect a second cabbage, this time a tiny one, leaf by leaf. The most perfect and beautiful of the small ones use as a background on which to tie the menu card with green ribbons. Choose other fine leaves in which to place olives, pickles, celery, etc, and by using a doily made of paraffin paper. Salted nuts and bonbons can also be placed on the leaves without danger of absorbing the cabbage flavor.
Take a fine and delicately-colored pumpkin, cut in halves, scoop out and cleanse thoroughly, after trimming off on the ends to secure a firm foothold. Line the halves with paraffin paper and fill one-half with doughnuts.
Instead of flowers, the florist will supply you with perfect specimens of wheat, oats and grasses. These can be used in graceful effect, either bunched in silver vases or laid carelessly upon the cloth.
Another pretty idea for the table is a fruit centerpiece. Place in the center of the dining-table half of a yellow pumpkin hollowed to form a bowl, filled with pears, grapes and rosy-cheeked apples.
At either end of the table, place flower bowls filled with red and yellow chrysanthemums. Arrange vines, caught in the chandelier, in and out among the fruit in the center of the table to the finger-bowls at each end of the table.
