{12 Posts before Thanksgiving} Let's talk seating!

 

You have invited guests and have probably thought about a menu. Now, where are your guests going to sit? Before you panic, I have three ideas.

1. Dinner Party Seating Strategies, a Real Simple magazine article, offers great guidance on seating guests based on their personalities. Plus the article includes a printable worksheet.

2. Placecards - now that you know where you want guests to sit, tell them with a placecard! For my "owl" Thanksgiving theme (see 2 blogs down), I'm making complementary Owl placecards (see above; click here to buy) - well, who am I kidding; this is a great project to keep my school-age girls busy until dinner. There is also a turkey placecard kit (see photo below; click here to buy). Alternately, Meri Meri has the cutest "turkey" placecards (click here to buy) to dress up any Thanksgiving table. If you're in a pinch, make placecards by cutting pieces of paper and handwriting your guests' name on it; place it between the fork tines or integrate it into the napkin ring.

3. The biggest Thanksgiving seating dilemma may be a shortage of dining chairs. To compensate, hosts usually pull an assortment of chairs from the kitchen and office. This is an ideal strategy; however, the key to keeping it posh is to randomly insert these stray chairs among the dining chairs rather than grouping them together. If the stray chairs still stand out, one tip is to use pillow cases (in a complementary color) on the back of the chair and embellish with ribbon. if you don't have extra pillow cases, don't sweat it; once your guests are seated, no one can see the chair!