The Art of Hosting: Using Flowers to Create an Inviting Thanksgiving Atmosphere

The weather’s getting colder, the days are growing shorter, and while for many this may feel like a gloomy and depressing part of the year, it is also a great opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the warmth and coziness of a domestic atmosphere, especially with holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas behind the corner. Speaking of Thanksgiving, it’s one of the best holidays to gather around the table with your family, and if you are anything like me, then you’d want to make sure that the whole setting is appropriately decorated. There are many ways to decorate your home for Thanksgiving, but one type of decoration that people often tend to forget about is flowers. Yes, late November might not be a time of the year that’s typically associated with lush flowers (or with any other type of lush vegetation for that matter), but you’d be surprised at the variety and beauty that autumn flowers have. So, to help broaden your horizons on the topic of Thanksgiving decorations, today I’ll give you some ideas about how to use autumn flowers to bring a festive Thanksgiving atmosphere to your home. Let’s get started!

A Centerpiece is an item that’s typically placed in the middle of the room, usually on the main table, and it is used to set the overarching theme of the entire decoration. This is why having a beautiful flower centerpiece in the room where you will be celebrating Thanksgiving with your family and relatives offers a great way to set the mood and tone of the evening and to enhance the rest of the decorations.

But what autumn flowers to use for your Thanksgiving centerpiece? There are actually many good options to pick from. One of my main recommendations is to focus on chrysanthemum flowers - they are a typical autumn flower with a delicate and lush appearance, and it comes in many different colors, including red, blue, pink, yellow, and more. The color variety of chrysanthemums also makes it very easy to match them with the color palette of the rest of your decoration. My personal suggestion is to go for orange chrysanthemums, since this is the color most commonly associated with autumn and also because they will be a perfect match if you have any pumpkins in your decoration. Furthermore, you can even use a carved-out pumpkin as a vase for your centerpiece - it’s both easy to make and will make the centerpiece stand out even more, while also adding an extra touch of autumn coziness.

Let’s say you already have your festive autumn flowers centerpiece prepared - now it's time to complete the decoration of your table with complementary table settings. The flower decoration doesn’t need to be anything elaborate or difficult to prepare. Simply place small bouquets of chrysanthemums or another type of autumn flowers that match the color palette of the centerpiece inside mini vases at each place setting at the dinner table. If you want to diversify the types of flowers used in the decoration, mini sunflowers or dahlias are both very good choices that I can recommend.

Another small, but elegant thing that you can do to enhance the decoration of your home is to tie the napkins with napkin rings made of a small bunch of flowers or a single bloom, tied with a ribbon. Or if you like to add a more rustic feel to your decoration, you can even use twine instead of ribbon. It might not seem like much, but trust me, your guests will notice and appreciate small touches like this.

Now that we’ve set the table, we can move on to other parts of the house, decorating them with autumn flower garlands and wreaths. Admittedly, this is a more challenging and time-consuming task, but it’s not as difficult as it might seem. 

You can start by tying together different types of flowers with twine, creating beautiful garlands that you can place along the across buffets, railings, or hang them over mantles. Obviously, you can also place a garland across the middle of the dining table if you think it won’t take too much space there. Just make sure to be careful when tying together the flowers to keep the petals and blooms as intact as possible.

And once you’ve decorated everywhere with garlands, why not also fashion or buy a nice wreath. Nothing says “You are welcome in my home and at my table to celebrate this festive day with me!” better than an inviting autumn flower wreath hung on the front door of your house. Now wreaths can be rather difficult to make and if you aren’t sure how to prepare one, it’s okay to purchase it. However, if you are more of a hands-on person, making a wreath is certainly an achievable task, even if it takes you a couple of tries. 

You’ll first need to create a circular base using wire, grapevine, or even a flexible and bendable bush or young tree branch. Once you have your wreath base ready, you can start tying autumn flower blooms to it using wire. I recommend mixing together different types and sizes of flowers to enrich the final look of the wreath and to finish it all off, you can tie a tasteful festive ribbon and then hang the entire thing on your front door.

Last but not least, you can also add some autumn flower decorations to both the walkway leading up to your doorway and the entryway leading up to your dining room, where your family will gather in the evening. There’s nothing more inviting than seeing all the beautiful decorations on both sides of a walkway or entryway that your host has prepared ahead of time, and so I definitely recommend putting some effort in there as well.

Again, it doesn’t have to be anything elaborate - a couple of potted flowers placed on both sides of your walkway will go a long way in setting the right mood and atmosphere for the festive day and evening. And once the guests go past your front door and into the entryway to your dining room, having a couple of potted flowers in warm colors will provide the perfect prelude for the rest of the celebration. I especially like the idea of having the flowers placed inside woven baskets for a more rustic atmosphere which, in my opinion, is ideal for autumn holidays and the autumn season as a whole.

One thing I want you to remember when it comes to decorating with flowers for Thanksgiving is that, even if it seems like a challenging task that can take up your entire day (or a couple of days), the truth is that it’s really not that difficult to bring a festive atmosphere to your home. You don’t need to do everything I’ve mentioned here, but even if you only put a couple of garlands and a nice Thanksgiving wreath you’ve bought earlier that day, this will go a long way in enhancing the festive mood and showing your gratitude towards your guests for being with them for this beautiful celebration.