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Every year, for the past several years, we’ve hosted Thanksgiving dinner for Dave’s extended family (his parents and aunt and uncle, specifically). And last year, what with our new formal dining room and all, I finally got around to setting a pretty table for the occasion. Well, I thought it was pretty.

My big splurge was the Patch NYC dessert plates from Target. I love them. Then I picked up plain white dinner plates from TJ Maxx and those chargers from, I think, Hobby Lobby.

I’m planning on a very similar table this year….I may switch up the centerpiece some, because I feel like I should, but same plates, same black and white and gold theme.

But one thing that made my table a little less beautiful last year was my lack of coordinating serving dishes. I did have this bowl and platter that my mom picked up for me (again from TJ  Maxx, I believe)

And then I had these salt and pepper shakers from Target:

And when I ordered the plates, I couldn’t resist adding in this clearanced serving bowl:

But there’s a lot of food floating around at Thanksgiving, so we still had to use some serving dishes that……didn’t go! Horrors.

So I’ve made it my mission to pick up more white serving dishes before this coming Thanksgiving. And I’ve made great progress. And an interesting trend has developed completely by accident: not only do I have a white/black/gold theme going on, I have a woodland creature/forest theme going on! Which pleases me greatly. Sometimes the universe tells you that you need forest themed fancy dishes by putting them in the thrift stores for you. Message received, universe!

Okay, actually, this first thing is the only thrift find so far:

But do you see what that is?! It’s a mushroom sugar and butter dish set! Google has yielded many images of these exact same pieces painted in a startling variety of colors, so I’m gathering this was a popular paint-your-own-pottery set at some point. The ones on Etsy all claim to be from the 70’s. Maybe? I don’t know. I’m just glad mine is painted white instead of purple and yellow (true story).

Then one day I got a text from my friend Kristi letting me know that Tuesday Morning had octopus pillows on clearance. Of course I got an octopus pillow. But I also spotted these bowls:

Right? So I had to buy those. When one of those owls is wearing a heaping hat of mashed potatoes, I’m going to be very happy indeed.

And, finally, my elusive gravy boat! I’ve never had a real gravy boat before. We’ve always improvised, and it’s never felt very….grown up. So I’ve been on the hunt for a white gravy boat all year. I was shocked when exactly what I needed turned up a couple of weeks ago….in the Dollar Spot at Target! It was one of the $3 things, not really a dollar, but that’s okay. $3 for a perfectly serviceable and attractive ceramic gravy boat (I felt like I needed to make it clear that’s it not plastic. But a plastic gravy boat would be really weird, wouldn’t it?) is a good deal in my book:

I’ll still be keeping my eye open for more between now and Thanksgiving, but I think we’re in pretty decent shape now.