Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to get together with family and friends to reflect & be grateful for all the wonderful blessings that God has given each of us. This year, I’m off the hook on cooking and we will be going to my hubby’s dad’s side of the family in Montgomery for Thanksgiving Day and then on Friday, we’ll head over to Atlanta to celebrate with my family. Oh, the food we’ll eat. It will all be delicious and fattening and oh, so yummy.
Just wanted to leave you with some beautiful pics that my friend, Maureen, posted over on her blog, Penchants, Ponderings, & Posies. Maureen recently visited Nell Hill’s, which is one of Mary Carol Garrity’s shops, out in Kansas & took some beautiful inspirational pictures that you will all love. If you click on the link, you can find her photo albums & take a look at a lot more of them. She’s got a great eye for these things & always shares her gorgeous pics with us & she graciously allowed me to borrow a few of them for this special day. So, enjoy the eye candy! Mo & I share a love for decorating & started out as online friends, when we were both living in Atlanta. Now, we are friends in real life & try to get together whenever we can & since we both love to tour showhouses, that seems to be something that we make a point to try to do whenever possible. 
Beautiful place settings. I believe that all of these were taken inside Mary Carol Garrity’s home. I have really enjoyed the Mary Carol book that my sweet friend, Manuela, sent me recently. I have poured over all the beautiful pics to glean some new inspiration for Christmas this year…and there is plenty there to be inspired over. 
Mary Carol puts together the most inspiring tablescapes & vignettes, which always amaze me.
Pears are a favorite of mine too & she’s used these very cleverly. I’ve got some ideas this year for all my pears too.
One of my faithful readers, Amy, who lives in Maryland recently emailed me about Southern cooking for Thanksgiving and asked me what sort of things my family cooks. So, I shared a few things that my family usually has on Thanksgiving. I’m sure many families down South have different traditions that they carry on. We always have turkey & usually ham too. My mom will make many different vegetables, like Ford Hook lima beans, green beans, maybe creamed corn out of her freezer, we always do sweet potato casserole with the brown sugar & pecans on top, sometimes mashed potatoes & ham gravy. We have one dish that we all like since it was introduced in the family a few years ago & it is a pineapple & cheese casserole. It has lots of butter & flour so it bakes up all cheesy & it’s really good. Something about that combo really is great & it’s a nice side to ham. None of our stuff is low-fat though! We usually have some sort of festive green salad, maybe with pecans & mandarin oranges or dried cranberries. There are lots of good salad recipes out there. And my mom started making a congealed cranberry salad many years ago that we all love & it has apples, pineapple, whole cranberry sauce & walnuts in a jello mixture. It’s a great side dish for all the other things. We always, always make it & it’s great left over as a snack too. Usually have some sort of yeast rolls and at least a cake and pie. Mom always mixes that up a lot, as she has a lot of cakes & pies that she makes from year to year.
Oh, and the most important things to most Southerners at Thanksgiving is the dressing. Southern dressing is always made with cornbread. Don’t ask me how to make it, cause I don’t have a clue. My mom always makes it & I don’t absolutely love dressing (I’d rather have the other carbs!), so I don’t eat a lot of it, but it’s got chicken broth, giblets, & is based on broken up cornbread, celery, sage, lots of stuff in it. That’s the traditional Southern dressing. I know Northerners make it a lot different than we do.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving Day with family and friends. I sure am thankful for all that the good Lord has done for me & my family! I’m finished with all the furniture painting, so I’ll be sharing those projects very soon.
Hi Rhoda…just stopping by to say hi, and wish you a HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
Every new friend is a new door to a different world…. To be depressed is to be lonely; to have a friend is to be happy…
See you again soon.
CIELO
Rhoda,
Thanks for sharing those lovely pictures.
You and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Rosemary
Happy Thanksgiving~ I guess y’all will be one of the millions of cars on I65 this weekend. Wave as you creep by.
Yumm! Cornbread dressing and green beans…sweetpotatos too!
The table setting is soo pretty, thank you for the inspiration and you have yourself a Blessed Thanksgiving!!
I’m glad you are coming to the “what do you LOVE about your holiday home?” party! It will be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see all of the creatively decked out homes.
I don’t live too far from Atchinson, where Nell Hills is located, but just don’t get there very often. Mary Carol is opening another store outside of Kansas City, I am looking forward to seeing it soon. She has wonderful things and is so reasonably priced.
Happy Thanksgiving, Rhoda!
Pat
Happy Thanksgiving dear Rhoda!!!!
I count you as one of my blessings… thank you for always, always being such a SWEETHEART!
xo,
Kim
Beautiful photos! I also loved hearing about your menu. I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving~
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m here via Boomama. 🙂
I love your site, it’s inspiring! I see lots of pieces similar to what I have here at home and you’re giving me some fresh ideas! Thank you!
I’m in a little town of east of Atlanta if you’d like to come and help me decorate for Christmas. Just kidding! Have a wonderful weekend visiting your family!
blessings,
stephanie
Hey Rhoda! I hope you and I can meet sometime when you’re in Montgomery or I’m in B’ham. We’re going to Peachtree City to my sisters on Thanksgiving Day. Safe traveling to you and I’ll be looking for those Christmas posts from your house! I love all of Mary Carol’s decorating…she’s one talented lady. I got her Christmas book 2 years ago and have been incorporating some of her stuff in my home every year since.
(By the way, WAR EAGLE)!
Have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving.
happy thanksgiving to you and all of yours. I loved your photos! I learned so much about what I want to do differently next year!
I hope you have a wonderful, happy Thanksgiving, Rhoda!! Hmmm, I hope someday to be able to sample some serious Southern cooking! It all sounds so incredibly delicious!
What a wonderful post! I would love this shop!
I must say that the cornbread stuffing sounds amazing! Can you tell that I’m from California? I say, “Bring on the carbs!”
KJ
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your holiday with your family.
Happy Thanksgiving, Rhoda! I’m looking forward to catching up on all my favorite blogs over the weekend.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving Rhoda, from my family. . . to yours.
Blessings,
Sher
Gorgeous photos as usual!
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Many Blessings,
Sandy 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving Rhoda!
Fran