Made and Found: Foraged Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Now that I've said that, I'm probably going to completely negate the sentiment with the following statement: I've never been much of a Thanksgiving person. I always considered it one of those holidays manufactured to celebrate the subjugation of Native Americans as well as our rampant consumer culture. Oh yeah, I'm that type. Plus, for the longest time, I hated turkey. So you can imagine how fun I was at Thanksgiving dinner!

I'm not saying that I've changed my mind about the subjugation of Native Americans and the whole Black Friday/Gray Thursday/Cyber Monday shopping extravaganza, but as I've gotten older (a statement which makes me sound super, super old), I've come to appreciate the whole sit-down dinner/thankfulness/spending time with family bit...sort of...mostly.

Since our Thanksgivings have been vegetarian for quite a few years, there's no turkey at the center of our table. It's all veggie side dishes. So, I decided I'd make a table centerpiece from some foraged greenery (and brownery).

I especially love the dead ferns. They're just so curly and interesting...like tentacles. And they wrap around things, things like pumpkins, in a really satisfying way.

I used a cake platter (picked up several years ago at Pier 1 Imports for $9.00), a leftover Halloween pumpkin (still firm and going strong!), juniper branches, dead ferns, pyracantha, and some frosty unidentified ground cover. I just browsed around in the bushes for plants I liked the looks of. Easy peasy!

Hmm, I really like this assortment of greenery. Might be time to make another foraged wreath! 

P.S. I do hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving. And I won't judge at all if you shop-it-up on Black Friday. Unless you trample people over a television. That will make me judge you a lot.