Category: autumn

Traditionally an all American celebration but we, across the pond, are now starting to see it as the start of the final countdown to Christmas. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving Thursday, is generally the day when our American cousins start their Christmas shopping and when all the high street and online stores start their Christmas gift promotion sales. The origins of Thanksgiving are thought to date back to 1621 when it started as a 3-day festival to celebrate the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

As with many celebrations, it has all become a bit over-commercialised and “disposable”. If you’re having a Thanksgiving celebration, discover here how to give it a more environmentally conscious meaning – with some principles that you can carry over to your Christmas dining table and maybe even some good, long-lasting habits.

Photo featuring: Kingsbridge Industrial Reclaimed Oak Dining Table

A reclaimed wood dining table is a great start, this will give you a great foundation for your sustainable Thanksgiving celebration, consider an extendable table if you like to entertain a lot. Although celebrations may be a bit more subdued than normal this year, a wooden bench is a great way to fit more people around your table for years to come. Not only that but they are also right on trend and look gorgeous dressed with cushions to sit on or a small throw. Start a sustainable theme in your home now and beyond, and invest in reclaimed wood furniture next time you need to replace a piece of furniture.

Keep the look rustic with your table decorations – use gourds rather than plastic or throwaway decorations – these will give your rustic table an earthy look and will be completely in keeping with the time of year and the harvest origins of the celebration. Think also about decorating other pieces in your dining space, such as a reclaimed wood sideboard.

There are many ways to incorporate nature into your table setting – autumnal leaves and twigs in a vase look great. The beauty of natural decorations is that they can be easily sourced outside and are fully compostable when finished with.

Even for large gatherings, you don’t need tonnes of different serving dishes. This is another area that you can purchase a few good quality versatile dishes that will work as well for your autumnal Thanksgiving table setting as they will for a summer barbecue. Table linen is another area where you can embrace sustainability, use a crisp white linen table cloth and add a runner and linen napkins in one or two coordinating earthy colours – this will give your table a much more polished feel than cheap throwaway serviettes.

Try to purchase locally grown organic food from farm shops – this will help support local small businesses and have less impact on the environment as very few chemicals are used in growing organic crops. This is, after all, a celebration of the local harvest! You can also extend this to the drinks you serve by purchasing local or organic wine in recycled glass bottles and avoiding soft drinks in plastic bottles. Try to reduce food waste. Many of us hugely overestimate how much food we need to put on the table so make a little less food. You can also ask your dinner guests if they want to take any leftover food home with them…. to save it just ending up in the bin. Any biodegradable food waste and vegetable pairings can be composted.

Halloween is going to be quite a bit different this year, so we thought we would look at how your household could enjoy an alternative Halloween and how to make the most of spending it at home. We’ve put together a few suggestions on how to give a rustic dining table a quick Halloween makeover, a few activities to do and easy to set up games you can play with the kids.

Creative kids

If you have little ones they can still get dressed up, but maybe they could let their creativity run wild by getting them to design and make their own costume (with a little help of course) and have a go at painting their own faces.

For autumn / Halloween themed decorations you can make leaf garlands, they’re free, quick and easy….. and the kids will love to help make them. Being natural and earthy, they look fab with rustic furniture – hang some over a round wall mirror and drape fake cobwebs over chair backs, a wooden bench or the dining room or kitchen sideboard.

Spooky snacks

Prepare a Halloween themed dinner – A platter of ghouly appetizers followed by spaghetti pasta (worms) and red tomato sauce (blood) with hot dog fingers. For dessert, something as simple as cupcakes (you could use green food colouring for the sponge mix) with a cobweb piped icing and some bat or spider decorations on top would look great on the Halloween rustic table. You can also make some coloured biscuits and add spooky eyes before serving!

Table decorations

A reclaimed wood dining table, with its gorgeous natural characteristics, lends itself perfectly to a Halloween theme! For quick and simple table decorations add some fake cobwebs and spiders or bats. If you have rustic or reclaimed wooden sideboards in your room you can dress them also – add some large candles to achieve a spooky atmosphere along with a Halloween wreath, carved pumpkins, gourds, twigs and autumn leaves.

Halloween fun and games

Just because you can’t go out and do the normal trick or treating doesn’t mean you can’t play some classic Halloween games in your own home or in the garden. Of course, there is the traditional pumpkin carving, pin the spider on the cobweb or the tail on the black cat, alternatives to the donkey! Bobbing for doughnuts – although this may be one for the garden! String up some doughnuts and with hands behind their backs, the kids see how fast they can eat them. Just like an Easter egg hunt – do the same for Halloween themed treats – you can hide treats around the house, under your reclaimed wood bed or in the garden – you might even want to turn the lights down low for a more spooky feel.