Thanksgiving Decorations: Do it Yourself

Since Thanksgiving became an official yearly holiday in 1941, people tend to decorate their houses and gardens or yards with items that reflect the beautiful fall and harvest season. These decorations are inspired by several old European customs; when people observed the end of the harvest season; while the twentieth century gave birth to another kind of decorations.

These are ornaments like bundles of cornstalks and foddershocks generally placed with vegetables and fruits: pumpkins, gourds, cushaw and other Autumn items that we can see on the gardens or yards of many houses.

A good example is the "wicker man", built with straw or wicker, filled with fruits from the harvest that was burned in the honor of the gods; which was born from an old European pagan tradition.

The wreath is also one of these old customs of the Fall season. Typically the wreath was made out of woven grapevines or thin oak limbs and decorated with wooden beads, sunflowers, feathers, miniature pumpkins and other items related to the fall season.

The twentieth century opened a new era of income to entrepreneurs, giving them the opportunity to sell more detailed ornaments items for Thanksgiving, such as plates, napkins, adorned with fall designs, candles, artificial vegetation, decorative lights, and so much more! Even plastic turkeys like the lovely miniatures "Tom Turkey" will be part of your dinner while some pictures of Indians and pilgrims hanging on the walls, will add a real "traditional" Thanksgiving mood to your home. Ready-made foddershocks, fall wreaths, wooden beads, silk flowers, plastic apples, miniature pumpkins are available in any retail store and even at the local road side flea market or farmer's market.

Although, if you have the time and the inclination, you can save a lot of money and have more fun creating your own Thanksgiving ornaments.

Make Your Own Foddershock

How to make a foddershock? Simply take a good number dry corn stalks - usually left on the side of a cornfield at the end of harvest season - bind them by the middle with a natural bond such as raffia, till you get a "tepee" shape.

Choose the area of your lawn or yard where you will place the foddershock and sit a scarecrow close to it. Don't forget to add some Autumn items like pumpkins, gourds, and other winter squashes.

Homemade Scarecrow

Creating a scarecrow is also very easy: just make a cross with two sticks that you will join firmly together. Then place on an old long sleeved shirt, denim or flannel looks best. Create a head by stuffing an old pillow case or cloth sack with straw, dried grass or some old rags. Draw a face on the head and then stick it on top of the upright stick, tying it at the base of the sack to the stick. Place an old straw hat on it and ... that's it! Here is an alternative: you may use a pumpkin for the head.

There are so many beautiful, money-saving, and simple ornaments you can make. Use your creativity and start your own traditional Thanksgiving ornaments!