Whew! Has it really been a week since Thanksgiving? I had three visiting family members staying with me for nearly a week, so I'm still trying to get caught up on all the cleaning/laundry that ensues with houseguests. It was really wonderful though, to spend time with my mother and grandparents, and we had such a wonderful, relaxing time together.

We were joined by additional family members, for a total of eleven people around our Thanksgiving Dinner table. They came from Cleveland, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Grand Junction and Colorado Springs, Colorado, and we were truly blessed that our family traveled from near and far to be with us on our first holiday in our new home city!

Although we are currently renting a small house, we didn't really have the space for eleven people. So we decided to get creative, and we actually served Thanksgiving dinner in our basement. The biggest room in our basement is long and narrow, and we have it divided into a den on one side and my office on the other, with a wall of curtains separating the spaces. So for Thanksgiving dinner, we moved the furniture to the edges of the room, pulled back the curtain, patched two tables together and covered them with a big tablecloth. We nabbed chairs from all over the house, not to mention the patio, so that we could provide a seat for every bottom. I was a little concerned that it would be too cold in the basement, or too unconventional, but nobody seemed to mind.

When you set a pretty table and ply people with good food and good booze... people tend to be very, very happy. ;-)

There wasn't much space on the table for decor, so I kept things simple with gold glittered trees, arrangements of holiday greens and gold roses, gold pinecone candlestick holders, and some assorted mini pumpkins.