Halloween has always been a big deal in our household especially because my brother’s birthday is the day after Halloween. Every second year when we were in elementary my parents would host epic Halloween themed birthday parties for my brother. Not an inch of our home was left undecorated, we had cobwebs everywhere, bats, spiders, skeletons, and ghosts were hung from the ceiling. One year we had fog in the basement along with fake tombstones my parents had made and some strobe lighting courtesy of my father. Our townhouse was filled with friends and extended family all dressed up in their costumes. To this day we reminisce with those who attended.
Now Halloween has turned into a more subtle affair, we put out a little less decoration each year and it’s been awhile since we’ve donned a costume, but our love of Halloween remains. To celebrate both Halloween and my brother’s birthday we decided to decorate our table fitting for both occasions. Mom had Dad take out a frozen prime rib to thaw for his birthday dinner and the very next day he found out he had to work out of town! We have no choice but to eat his birthday meal without him as the prime rib was already thawed, such a huge sacrifice we have had to make for him (not). For dessert he requested Flapper Pie, another family recipe passed down to us by my great grandmother, we will be waiting for him to return before we make the pie. Keep an eye out for that post sometime soon.
You might have noticed that we went neutral with this setting, not a pop of orange to be found. Mom once again found an amazing tablecloth for us to decorate our setting around, we adored the neutrality of it so we leaned into it. Although not an obvious choice for Halloween we are thrilled with the result.
When deciding what dinnerware to use we thought we should go for darker neutrals to make it feel a bit spookier. We chose a Dinnerware set called “Amandalina Moss” by Oneida as it has a wonderful dark green in it and the cream in the center ties in with the plate we placed our glass pumpkin on.
Mom came across the glass pumpkin candy dish and thought it would be perfect for this setting. At first, she thought we could fill it with black licorice candied popcorn so the black would show through. We realized however that it would not fill the whole pumpkin and that black had too much contrast. So, we looked at what we had, and mom found the brown shredded paper to fill the candy dish. The dark brown colour worked perfectly.
As with many of our table settings we used a combination of vintage and contemporary pieces. The smoked brown relish dishes and candleholders are from the 1970’s by Anchor Hocking. The water glasses in charcoal grey are contemporary as well as the chunky hammered flat ware. And to finish it off we used stainless steel salt and pepper shakers by Sabre, made in New Zealand in an interesting torpedo shape.
We may not be having flapper pie for desert after tonight’s meal but we are having sugar cookies. I decorated them to look like pumpkins and used muted tones to compliment our table setting. I did use a bit of colour however, couldn’t help myself. They turned out really cute.
Once again, we were thrilled with how this setting turned out. My brother may not be here to enjoy it this weekend, but we might just have to reset the table when he returns, and we are able to celebrate with him. We hope that you have found a way to enjoy this spooky day with your families. Happy Halloween!
PS. We had a little fun with what would have been my brothers spot at the dinner table, take a look below.
