Thanksgiving at the Jungalow and 5 Affordable Holiday Entertaining Ideas

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.

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

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 bolt of fabric from a discount fabric store downtown as a tablecloth.

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.

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 plus they last a long time. The cedar sprigs smell divine and made my whole house smell amazing.

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. 


(Look how Ida happy is at the kid’s table with her cousins!)
   

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!

 

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 the Thanksgiving leftovers. xx ~j