If you’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, you’ve probably already started your “to dos.” First up, the guest list and invitations. Then, all the details of the meal itself – how many pounds of turkey and ham, which side dishes, who’s bringing what, who can’t eat what, and – perhaps most importantly – what’s the ratio of pumpkin to apple to pecan in this year’s pie selection?
With so many details involved in coordinating the meal and guests alone, it can be easy to put Thanksgiving decorations on the back burner, so to speak. Hosts have more than enough to spend their time and money on without adding the expectation of some grandly decked out holiday movie set on top of it. The good news is that there’s no need to go overboard. Decorating for Thanksgiving on a budget can be simple, and you can make quite an impact with just a few carefully chosen Thanksgiving décor elements that won’t add much at all to your timeline.
Curious to learn more? We’ve rounded up our top 5 cheap Thanksgiving decorating ideas to get your inspiration jump-started this season. These themes for how to decorate Thanksgiving on a budget are “no pressure” options that you can turn up or down the intensity on depending on how much fuel you’ve got left in the tank.
Remember: The stars of the show are the food and drinks, the Thanksgiving table decorations and settings, and, of course, the love and happiness of the holiday and the people you’ve gathered to celebrate it together. A simple Thanksgiving décor scheme works just fine, because it is a holiday truly meant to spark inner reflection on gratitude for what we already have – and what we can bring to the table to share with each other.
Cheap Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas
- Highlight Fall’s Natural Beauty
- Embrace Your Inner Child
- Bring Out the Antiques
- Get Crafty and Explore DIY
- Accentuate Minimalism
Highlight Fall’s Natural Beauty
Thanksgiving always comes at the end of November. A time when the harvest is done, the trees have just about finished shedding their leaves, and all the plants and animals are readying themselves for winter. The landscape can be a bit stark, but there is also a lot of beauty in the dried grasses, pinecones, branches and stems so readily available during this time.
As far as DIY Thanksgiving decorations go, you’ll be hard-pressed to find ones more simple or cheap than collecting interesting dried out plants from your local craft store, nursery, backyard – or even the side of the road! – and arranging them with cinnamon sticks, small gourds, pieces of bark and evergreen, and pinecones. You can make the arrangements as simple and spare as you like or add more elements as the mood strikes. Either way, it brings the beauty of the season straight to your tabletop at a very reasonable (even free) price point.
A slightly more expensive take is to use living plants in your Thanksgiving decor. Of course, nurseries sell all manner of tabletop flower displays, which are beautiful but can be quite costly. For more budget-friendly Thanksgiving decorations on a budget, take succulents and plant them within small, hollowed out gourds for either a tabletop display or eye-catching place settings.
Speaking of gourds, we also love the look of a selection of gourds and small, specialty pumpkins scattered down the center of a table with greenery and candles tucked between them. This striking combination can be all that’s necessary to set the stage for a stunning Thanksgiving celebration – as long as you’ve got a sideboard or other easily accessible table to keep all the serving dishes nearby. Nothing catches the eye quite like a dish of mashed potatoes stuck into your decorative masterpiece!
Embrace Your Inner Child
A classic – and classically cheap – tabletop decoration technique is to set the scene with items more commonly found in a playroom or classroom than a dining room. For Thanksgiving, these informal and deeply familiar elements work to create a warm and welcoming display that can be dressed up or down depending on whether actual kids are coming to the event or not.
Some of the best cheap Thanksgiving decorating ideas of this type we’ve seen include:
- Chalkboard table runners with liquid chalk place settings, wine notes, etc.
- White paper tablecloth with crayons or markers for the guests to add their own decorations and observations
- Vintage toy trucks with mini-gourds in the back scattered among the Thanksgiving decorations
- DIY corkboard leaf trivets (coincidentally a great craft project for kids to help out with), which bring to mind fall decorations hanging in elementary school windows
- Pumpkins painted different styles, all metallics, with faces, etc.
If you’re lucky enough to have any Thanksgiving decorations or special serving-ware that has been properly stored from when you were a child, this is definitely the time to bust them out – especially if there are any other guests that will have fond recollections of them as well. These are some of the best and most memorable Thanksgiving decorations on a budget you can utilize. After all, how many times can Granny’s pilgrim soup tureen really be used in daily life? This is its time to shine!
Remember: If you’re buying or creating anything you want to last over the long term, be sure to check out our blog how to store holiday decorations for tips and techniques. The fate of Granny’s soup tureen is in your hands!
Bring Out the Antiques
When decorating for Thanksgiving on a budget, don’t overlook the antique / vintage / secondhand / “new to me” look. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a winner for many reasons. Friendly on the earth and the wallet, used Thanksgiving tabletop décor, serving dishes, and serving ware – not to mention plates, glasses, and cutlery – can make for a truly unique look for your tabletop – and a truly unique experience for your guests.
There are a few different ways to cultivate this vibe for your Thanksgiving table. We found a number of tips online, and made note of the following:
- Fine China one-offs are great as accent pieces but probably too formal for an entire table
- Mismatched plates can work if they’re all variations of white or another neutral
- Silver will always work with silver, gold will always work with gold, etc.
- You can mix time periods, as long as the aesthetic stays the same
- Thrifted scarves and other fabrics can be used to add texture if you can’t find a tablecloth that matches your style or budget
Probably the most important tip for how to decorate for Thanksgiving on a budget, of course, is not to acquire anything that you don’t see yourself using for other purposes than just Thanksgiving. Hopefully by buying vintage, you’ll be able to find higher quality pieces that can last longer than the “disposable” items more freely available today – and create your family’s own next generation of heirlooms while you’re at it!
Get Crafty and Explore DIY
DIY Thanksgiving decorations can be a surefire way to add real spark to your scheme. If you’ve got a crafty soul and a hot glue gun, there’s really no end to the amount of Thanksgiving arts and crafts you can try out.
The keys to success? Most DIY Thanksgiving decorations involve natural elements, some sort of simple material or element (often easily sourced at a dollar store, craft store, or thrift store) and, yes, the aforementioned glue gun. Many of them are also kid-friendly, which can be a great distraction in the several days when they’re off of school but before the big event!
Here are some of our favorite DIY Thanksgiving decoration Ideas:
- Thanksgiving Napkin Rings
- Thanksgiving Thankful tree
- Votive Candles
- Fall Leaf Centerpiece
- Thanksgiving Place Cards DIY
Doing it yourself can certainly bring more stress to the planning, but it can also bring more charm as well. Remember that no one expects perfection and try to have fun. It will shine through in your creations.
Minimal Style
We’ve taken you through a number of ways to decorate for Thanksgiving on a budget, – but we might’ve saved the most important tip for last: simplify everything for minimal style – and maximal simplicity. Preparing an elaborate feast while hosting friends and family is enough to worry about. Let expectations of a perfectly polished autumnal table fall by the wayside. It’s just not what the holiday is about, and it’s also not worth overspending your time or your money to try to get it right if you’re just not feeling it.
That’s where minimalism comes in. We love the look of glass vases bunched together with one piece of greenery or grass in each. Or the elegance of a plain linen napkin with a small pinecone as a place setting. Take inspiration from the picture above and use a bold swag of greenery as a centerpiece with white ceramic plates.
This look works for many reasons at Thanksgiving, chief among them that the food is the real star of the show. Let it take centerstage by creating as simple and chic of a backdrop as possible. Your guests will be impressed by the sophistication of your display, and you’ll be impressed at the time, money, and energy you saved by keeping it simple.
We hope you found enough cheap Thanksgiving decorating ideas to inspire you this year – and for many years to come. From our tables to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! Need to store Thanksgiving decorations? Find a CubeSmart storage location near you!
