Thanksgiving Decor 2022

Even though I have only decorated for Thanksgiving 2 1/2 times in the past it has become my favorite to do.  I was so ready to get the Halloween stuff down on Nov. 1 this year which is just abnormal.  I love Halloween every day of the year but something about Fall/Thanksgiving decorating (done my way of course!) has got a' hold on me!

And this year's decor is the best by far!

Scroll and behold!

The dining room sideboard

The record cabinet

Dining room table centerpiece

The top of the china cabinet

The top of the display cabinet

The inside of the display cabinet

Living room side tables

TV area

These oversized cans of pumpkin were a craft project I was working on this year but didn't quite work out how I wanted.  The cans are those restaurant industrial sized ones and I added a print-out of a vintage can pumpkin label.  The issue is I couldn't get a proper print size to work making the label unable to cover the can fully.  It still gets the idea across and works for the most part.

The green display shelf/rack and focal wall in the living room

Close ups of some of the displays on the rack

This year I tried to pull more black into the decor as a bit of a Fall-o-ween look.

I had really wanted to do a dinner theme in the dining room (like when we did Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Turkey Day with The Clampetts, and Heat and Serve TV Dinners) but the free large format printing service hasn't been offered by my library for the past 2 1/2 years and it's really pivotal in getting a theme across quickly without having to make a bunch of time consuming crafty stuff. But even in this late hour I am trying to think of how I could pull off crafting a theme for this year!

I'll tell you all right now, I am certainly NOT going to be taking this down the weekend right after Thanksgiving.  Christmas can wait it's ass till December...

Here are the other 2 1/2 times I have done my Thanksgiving/Fall decor:

 2019

2020

2021

And if your Thanksgiving blog-fat-pants aren't stuffed enough then peruse all of my Thanksgiving posts by clicking on the 'thanksgiving' label seen below and to the left.

Fall Front Porch

Doing my Fall decorating has become my favorite and I look forward to it the most.  I think it's because I have only done it a few times and for the most part all of the items are in just one single manageable bin.  To fill the look out I pull items from other places in the house to repurpose along with scrounging some stuff off mother nature.

Here is the front porch this year which I am ehhhh about how it turned out.  

I think the pom pom wreath is a bit too much and overcrowds.  The door could benefit with more black oak leaf garland.

I need to make a larger front door wreath.  Near the bottom of the door you can barely make them out but I bought some Thanksgiving window clings that are super cute but wound up being too transparent. That really irks me when window clings look good on the white backing in the package but then are basically garbage on a window.  Next time I will just have to pull one off the sheet while in the store and check out it's opaqueness.

Here are close ups of all the vignettes:

We didn't carve the pumpkin this year for Halloween so I was able to use it as extended Fall decor.  I just couldn't come up with an idea of what I wanted to carve it as...Maybe I'll come up with something over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Maybe even a Thanksgiving theme?

I have only decorated the front porch for Thanksgiving one other time, waddle on over to:

 Fall Front Porch 2019

Fall-O-Ween Wreath

Have you guys heard of the Fall-O-Ween trend?  I am usually the last to hear so I am sure you have.  It's my understanding that it is lumping Halloween/Thanksgiving/ Fall together for the entire season.

I decided to do a little of this by pulling more Halloween into my fall decor.  I used a lot of black and orange this year. 

One crafty thing I did was take a Halloween pom pom wreath (see the Before below) that I picked up on after Halloween clearance (my kind of  "Black Friday" deal ) for a few bucks...

*Before*

 ...and I then Autumned it up by adding some brown pom poms.  I made them from yarn I bought at 1.25 Tree.

I'm still working out what items and what-not I think would work for me as Fall-O-Ween decor.  I also bought a Halloween black with orange and white plaid table cloth on clearance that transitions as Fall.  Black crows, pumpkins (sans Jack-o-lantern faced) and scarecrows work too.

(Spiders are year round decor!)

New Fall Decor 2022: Bates Turkey box

 It's always fun for me to showcase newly acquired items for each season or holiday.

This year I have a few that I have gotten over the past couple of years that I am using for my Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

Can I just tell you!!!? 

A vintage turkey box has been on my gotta-get list for the past couple of years.  

 Well, gotta-get for a cheap price, that is.

 A friend of mine and I decided to take a drive out to an estate sale over a hour away and in the closet was this box filled with fabric scraps.

The top of the box has been scribbled on by a kid but that doesn't bother me since I am going to display it high up. 

I am really excited that not only is it a Turkey box but its' a BATES Turkey box!

The Bates House of Turkey is something that we all get a chuckle out of.  We always passed it on the way to my mom's house and made the joke that it was the Norman Bates House of Turkey.

Well, it made us laugh.

And the best part is it only cost me a buck!

New Fall Decor 2022: Cranberry Set

  It's always fun for me to showcase newly acquired items for each season or holiday.

This year I have a few that I have gotten over the past couple of years that I am using for my Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

This is a really cool Thanksgiving decor piece and it's useful too for slicing and serving canned jelled cranberry sauce.  I really just like the box!  We picked it up at a thrift store for 3 bucks.

New Fall Decor 2022: Gurley Turkey candle

 It's always fun for me to showcase newly acquired items for each season or holiday.

This year I have a few that I have gotten over the past couple of years that I am using for my Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

 Just as I was declaring that the thrifts have entered into 'deplete of vintage' era, I came across this Gurley Turkey candle for 25 ¢ !

New Fall Decor 2022: Plastic Indians

  It's always fun for me to showcase newly acquired items for each season or holiday.

This year I have a few that I have gotten over the past couple of years that I am using for my Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

This set of small vintage plastic Indians were picked up last year from my favorite antique mall as part of their final days before closing retirement sale.  I think they were about 5 bucks.  They remind me of plastic models so maybe they were originally part of a DIY set of some sort.

New Fall Decor 2022: PBN Autumn set

 It's always fun for me to showcase newly acquired items for each season or holiday.

This year I have a few that I have gotten over the past couple of years that I am using for my Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

This Paint-by-Number set was done by my grandmother.  I have had them for several years packed away.  During the summer I spent some time going through stuff and came across them.  In general they aren't my style but they are most definitely Fall style decor so now they are getting out and about!

National Clean Out Your Fridge Day

It's that time of year again to pull out the crisper bins and play "What is (was) that?" regarding the sludge in the area under them.

Let's take a look at what needs to go...

Start by chunking anything past it's expiration date, toss out the vast quantity of condiment bottles that only have 1 tablespoon left in them, get rid of anything mushy that should be crunchy and vice versa, discard all of those food gifts from last Christmas that have been shoved to the back, anything in a packet goes.  Toss out all of those good intentions as well, you know you aren't going to start eating kale.  And while you are at it don't forget the freezer compartment.  Just because it's frozen doesn't mean it's still good.  So all of those "deals" you got on 'reduced for quick sale' meats that are now coated in freezer burn from being put in there in the original packaging are garbage.  Sure it sounds wasteful but it's time for you to own up to your mistakes and learn to not make them again.

Tough love is what is going to work cleaning out that fridge.

Now that the putrid has been expelled let's clean up. 

Your fridge needs a spa day.  Give the exterior a manicure, brow tweezing, and botox.

As for the interior...

Now that all the garbage is gone give it a good sanitary wipe down.

All nice and decluttered just in time to jam it full of pies, gravy, and Jack Daniels in a couple of weeks.

The owner manual featured today is for a 1950s General Electric Refrigerator Food Freezer }  Combination and has 76 new-different-recipes!

I'll be trying out a few in the next post!

For more fridge clean-age check out these past years:

2016

2018

2019

 

Fridge Day Snacks

In celebration of National Clean Out Your Fridge Day!

After all that hard work to get the fridge nice and cleared out we deserve a snack!

Of the 76 new-different-recipes I found us something fun to try out:

Cream Cheese-Olive Nut Sandwich Spread

Peanut Butter-Marmalade Sandwich Spread

Orange Fizz Ice Cream Float

(Cream Cheese-Olive Nut in foreground, Peanut Butter-Marmalade in middle)

These two are just different enough to be good.  The Cream Cheese-Olive Nut spread is very tasty and I liked the addition of the crunchy nuts.  I did find it a bit salty so I would not recommend the added onion salt.

The Peanut Butter-Marmalade is the real odd ball here because they fail to mention in the recipe name that it has shredded cheese in it... Peanut butter, jelly, and shredded cheese!?  Surprisingly enough it was my favorite.  I couldn't taste the cheese but it must have done something because it was more than just PB&J.

The Orange Fizz was okay.  PB thought it tasted like an Emergen-C in shake form.

A toast!

Here is to your sanitized fridge,

 may you see it brim with bacon and Velveeta,  

Claussen kosher pickles and tapioca pudding

all within expiration range!

May you never allow another ketchup packet

or out of date pack of wieners to disgrace it again! 

And remember...

A wise man knows that garbage day is Tuesday 

therefore every Monday is for clearing out the funk.

As a side note, I was pretty impressed with using the Frigidaire Double Quickube Tray as a serving tray.  I just placed an 8x10 piece of glass from a picture frame over the top.  I also sprinkled some epsom salt into the tray to look like ice crystals.

 

Hot Fudge Pudding

Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls 1957

Here is a dessert that isn't going to win any beauty contests except at the local county fair.

 I typically like to make recipes that include an image as that's a huge part of the fun for me to recreate how the original looks (or improve it!).  However as I was perusing the book I didn't see any illustrated recipes that either I haven't already made or that didn't looked like a snore.  I decided instead to pick something that had a bit of an interesting way it's made...and that would be Hot Fudge Pudding!

It's just basics like flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and nuts but it's construction is quite interesting.  It has a bottom layer of batter, then a layer of sprinkled powdered ingredients, and then you dump hot water on top and bake it.  Really weird to me, but I have never made a baked Pudding before, maybe this is as normal as knowing to not feed your dog a can of pork and beans.

Then there is the other surprise when you take it out of the oven.  Somehow the liquidly top flips to the bottom of the dessert and becomes pudding and the top is a rich dense chocolate cake.

It's very intriguing and tastes delicious even if it's not so much to look at!  Maybe that's why it didn't make it into an illustration.  I loaded mine up with whipped topping and nuts to put lipstick on the pig.

 

And if you don't want to take my word for how good this pudding is then listen to Lucy!

 

"Can you see anything?"

 "Yes, wonderful things."

~Howard Carter

100 years ago today explorer Howard Carter made the discovery of the ages when he finally came upon the first step leading to the sealed tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun after searching for many years in the Valley of the Kings.  It is still to this day the only tomb to be discovered nearly fully still intact.

 

I have just two subjects that I love to read about and that's Housewifery and Ancient Egypt.  I have been waiting for a decade for this 100 year anniversary.  I knew, just knew, that 2022 was going to see a resurgence in Egyptian inspired everything...fashion, knick knacks, travel, books, movies, lunchboxes...all of it.  Kinda like how 1976 blew up with bicentennial stuff.  And then, here we are.  Barely a peep.  The damn google image is "celebrating" a rice dish.

Well, I am still going to do my part.

Here are some images and info tidbits:

It wasn't actually until November 26, 1922 that Howard Carter could peer into the chamber to see those wonderful things. This is what he first saw:

The layout of the tomb:

Howard Carter and his team spent a decade cataloging and preserving all the artifacts.  During the early days of excavation it was very Indiana Jones like.  There weren't a lot of rules or process to preserve.  The treasure finder paid a fee to the Antiquities department for the right to excavate a chosen area for a set amount of time, what ever the explorer found they got to keep half!  Once Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tut the department did a huge turn around and had to settle with Carter.  At one point the tensions and pressure were so high that the coffin holding the mummy hung suspended for a year before Carter would/could come back to finish the excavation.  I have seen many modern "news" reports trying to claim Howard Carter as an artifact thief when the case is that the rules were changed on him abruptly.  For decades explorers got to keep their finds and then the officials got greedy.  I mean, sure, I agree that the artifacts should be in museums but in the 1920s (and the 1800s) things weren't that way.

Look up mummy unwrapping parties during the Victorian time if you really want to read about something to be upset about.

The burial chamber as it is in present day.

But back to parties, I planned a little celebration to honor today with a mummy themed dinner and desert!  Kinda Halloween spooky, silly but that's how I roll.

Crescent Roll Wrapped Meatloaf Mummy

(Make your favorite meatloaf and wrap cut strips of crescent roll mummy style, black olives for eyes, bake at meatloaf instructions)

Garlic Mummy French Bread

(French rolls brushed with butter, garlic, wrapped with strips of string cheese, black olives for eyes, then toasted)

Mummy Cupcakes

(just make cupcakes...)

For the past 100 years the artifacts from King Tut's tomb have been touring the world going to different museums in various groups of items.  This is probably a good thing because from the looks of it the current museum in Egypt is unfit to house such treasures.  However a new huge proper complex is under construction (The Grand Egyptian Museum) has been under construction for the past 10+ years.  It was originally going to open in 2013 and then there were financial set backs, in 2018 a fire of unknown origin happened, then it was set to open in 2020 but Covid, then the plan was to open in 2022 for the anniversary with all of the tomb's treasures together for the first time in 100 years, but again something fell through...or maybe it is the mummy's curse?

Happy Housewife's Day!

Today is our day ladies! 

 All of our hard work is not going to go unappreciated!  

We'll be honored like queens!  

We'll have the admiration of our family!  

They will tell us to just put our feet up and they will tend to the floors!

Uh? Oh, sorry...The floor wax fumes were addling my clear thinking.

But speaking of floor care products, isn't the Perma-broom spectacular!?

I am in the market for a new broom and would love to have that green bristled beauty.

For our treat to celebrate us wonderful beings of anti-filth, I made these broom cookies complete with sugar sprinkle "dust and debris" on the bristles!

Here is the recipe: Cookie Brooms

I just switched it up a bit by putting the butterscotch melt on the cookie broom business end and daubed it in some sprinkles.

The cookies are quite good and much taster that a real broom any day.

You would think since Housewifery is my thing I would celebrate this day every year but with it being so close to my beloved Halloween it just doesn't happen but every 7 years:

Housewife Day 2015