Welcome friends to my first tour of the holiday season! Since Thanksgiving is our family’s favorite holiday, our home is still decorated with festive Thanksgiving touches for late fall, although I have started adding evergreens and other small touches that will easily transition to Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Greetings!!!!

I am so excited to be joining 35 Fabulous bloggers this week for the Bloggers’ Best Holiday Home Tours! If you are coming over from Skylark House, or if you are just visiting today, I am so happy to have you! You will find links to all of the other tours at the end of my post.

 

 

Although I have gotten a little head start on the Christmas decor, the full on Christmas decorating extravaganza will commence as soon as the Thanksgiving dinner is cleared from the table. Today I will be sharing my Thanksgiving dining room, along with some Christmas shots from around the house last year so you will see how easily I will transition between the holidays. I hope you enjoy seeing how things are looking for the holidays so far, and I am also thrilled to show you a sneak peek of TWO major kitchen changes that I will fully reveal on my upcoming Christmas home tour! 

 

Thanksgiving Dining Room

This is our third year in our 1927 RED brick home, but only the first Thanksgiving for decorating the dining room.  Although the dining room was useable last year, we didn’t finish all the details until a couple of weeks before Christmas so I missed out on setting a Thanksgiving table. Even though it is our third year here, we are still fixing up several spaces and the home still feels new to me at times.

 

Here is a view of the Thanksgiving dining room from the kitchen, where I have actually already started decorating for Christmas, although it may not be evident at first glance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The unadorned evergreen garlands draped around the matching chandeliers in both the kitchen and dining room definitely add holiday vibes for Thanksgiving, but they will easily become more festive for Christmas with the addition of vintage bead garlands or ribbons, as in the two photos below.  

 

 

 

Christmas Dining Room 2024

 

 

   

 

 

 

    My favorite primitive duck always makes an appearance for Christmas, but this year I have gotten a head start by working her into the Thanksgiving decor. She is nesting in a large colonial-Christmas style evergreen fruit swag that I made for Thanksgiving, but with Christmas in mind. I will simply switch out her big gold bow with a plaid one and add a few apples, holly and pine cones to make the garland more Christmasey.  

 

 

You may recognize this duck from Christmas tours at the Yellow Brick Home.

 

Since the duck is perched on top of the cabinet for the holidays, I will have to find a new spot for my snow couple.

 

 

Last month I shared a simple Thanksgiving Centerpiece with French Pumpkins, Pears and artichokes, but the French pumpkins started to rot and I had to throw them out. I restyled my dough bowl centerpiece using the rest of the pumpkins and gourds I rounded up from around the house and porch.  The artichokes, dried whole oranges, twinkle lights and evergreens will be used in my larger Christmas dough bowl when I make the change.  

 

 

 

 

      Last year I thrifted these adorable brass turkey napkins rings in a favorite thrift shop in NY on a trip to visit our son. I recently gave them a rub and buff makeover to give them a more antique brass look.       

 

 

 

The table is set with my favorite Johnson Brothers “His Majesty” turkey dishes with a beloved brown transferware design.  

 

 

 

 

I used a pretty vintage transferware creamer with coordinating autumnal colors to hold gold flatware.    

 

 

 

Three other favorite vintage turkey dishes are displayed on the wall with some beautiful and festive velvet ribbon.  

 

 

I love finding different ways to display the little turkey plates along with my vintage turkey planters each Thanksgiving.

 

 

I will switch out the three little turkey plates for red transferware right after Thanksgiving.  

 

 

Of course I have to mix in some vintage blue transferware and plaid plates too! At Christmas, the more vintage dishes, the merrier! I will also  switch out my small dough bowl with my larger for my Christmas centerpiece after Thanksgiving. 

 

 

 

    This Thanksgiving dough bowl centerpiece filled with autumn goodness is a “bittersweet” farewell to fall!   

 

 

 

I used the last large pumpkin from the porch to style a similar vignette on the built in cabinets just behind the farm table.    

 

 

 

The Norfolk pine garland, tall brass candle sticks, burgundy and yellow ribbon, pheasant feathers and twinkle lights will all be used somewhere in my Christmas decor.  

 

 

 

 

 

    Last year we had just finished up the dining room built-ins literally days before my Christmas home tour, so it was the first time decorating the dining room for Christmas. I really loved this little tree with vintage ornaments as the focal point, but I have a few different ideas to try out this year.  

 

 

 

 

    By the way, here is a throw back of the exact same wall where the built in is now!     

 

 

While we’re here, I will show you a peek into the pantry, which is a space I haven’t shared on the blog yet. I am waiting for Santa to hang my thrifted 1920’s French door, and I just ordered some pretty wallpaper for the area above the beadboard! Hopefully I will be able to “reveal” the pantry on my Christmas tour on Dec. 5th.       

 

 

 

Turning around, here is a glimpse into the kitchen from the dining room with my cute Thanksgiving table top tree that will be so easy to transition to Christmas.

 

 

We created a semi open concept design when we removed the wall between the original kitchen and dining room (we flipped the rooms) so I like the decorating themes and colors to flow from one room to the next. Speaking of kitchen, do any of my regular readers spot one of the big surprise changes yet?   

 

 

I have pretty much cleared out fall from around the rest of the house and started transitioning other rooms with greenery and winter accents, so all of my velvet pumpkins are under the tree until they are replaced with presents and Christmas treasures.  

 

 

 

I’ve already gotten a head start on wrapping some presents! This particular paper I am using this year looks beautiful mixed in with the Thanksgiving decor too.    

 

 

 

 

 

     

I love my two little favorite vintage Gurney Turkeys in a vintage turkey gravy boat.

 

      All I need to do to make this basket work for Christmas is remove the turkeys and pilgrims and add a vintage Belsnickel and maybe some Christmas candy like I did last year.      

 

 

 

       

 

Thanksgiving-to-Christmas Kitchen Surprise Sneak Peeks!!!!

  While we are looking at this Christmas kitchen corner from last year, we can play spot the first BIG surprise, which you may have already noticed…

 

 

 

This past weekend my husband installed a full brick paver wall on the exterior wall behind the range and in between the two windows!  I have dreamed of this wall since we bought the house three years ago, especially since I left my beloved brick kitchen floor behind at the yellow brick home. Truth be told, I would much rather have a brick wall than brick kitchen floor. It was very hard to keep clean! With this wall I get all the vintage cottage European kitchen vibes without the mess!

 

 

 

Tom turkey tureen is the focal point in this picture, but the brick wall is hard not to notice!  

 

 

Sneak Peak Christmas Kitchen Surprise #2

 

 

  After two years of taping every shade of green and blue paint samples to the island, and never committing to any of them, I had a eureka moment when the brick wall starting going up…RED! I would have never thought of red but I am literally obsessed with the island now! Just two days ago we painted it Benjamin Moore cottage red, which is a rich, moody burgundy-brick red. Unfortunately The only days I have had since them to take photos were extremely dark and gloomy, so the pictures do not do the wall or the island justice.  I decided to just show these few peeks today and save the full reveal. I can’t wait to for a sunny day to get some really good shots of these kitchen updates!  

 

 

Cottage red is a neutral red, at times looking like dark wood, so it works beautifully in our home. We still have some touch ups to do, as you can still see blue painter’s tape at the bottom of the island.

 

 

 

The brick kitchen wall is a near perfect match with our brick fireplaces in the foyer and living room, as well as the brick entry we installed in our sunroom. It really adds to the authentic look and pulls the whole downstairs together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Here’s another photo to compare the view into the kitchen from last year.    

 

Same view from two years ago when we tore out the wall between the original dining room and kitchen.

 

The island two days ago. What a difference paint makes!

 

I love the rustic warmth of the cottage red island and brick wall! Because the accent wall is on an exterior wall, it really looks like it could be  an exposed brick wall and it looks so much more like an original kitchen. And there’s still plenty of white around the rest of the kitchen and other rooms for me to get my white wall fix!  The whole kitchen STILL isn’t finished, but we are almost there!

 

 

More Thanksgiving-to-Christmas Decorating In Progress

This weekend I will continue packing away any fall decor in the living room and foyer and begin the transition to Christmas with the mantel and staircase garlands, as well as add wreaths and greenery to cabinets, armoires and mirrors.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Scotland Inspired Early Fall Foyer 2025

 

 

   

Christmas Home Tour 2024

 

 

 

I will putting up the tree this weekend with lights and neutral bulbs, but our tradition is to put our family ornaments on the tree on Thanksgiving weekend. I can’t believe the holidays are here, can you?

 

 

 

 

      I hope you have enjoyed seeing my festive Thanksgiving-to-Christmas Dining Room as well as sneak peeks of the two big kitchen changes that have drastically changed the whole look and feel of our kitchen! Please do stop back by for a proper reveal on my Christmas home tour coming up on my “Seasonal Saturdays” series on December 6th!  Now the beautiful holiday inspiration continues over at Lora Bloomquist! I know you will love her vintage Christmas as much as I do! Don’t forget to check out all of the other amazing Bloggers’ Best Holiday Home Tours via the links below.     Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas, my friends!

Amber  

 

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