We are having Thanksgiving at our house this year! This exciting for me since I’ve spent the past 10 years traveling somewhere for Thanksgiving. We are having as much of both our families come as can make it. We will miss the ones that can’t! 🙁 I am providing the turkey, a tofurky (for me!), the drinks, and some appetizers. The various members of my family are bringing and preparing the rest of the meal here. We are excited to have each of our moms bring our favorite dishes that they make!

Since it is at my house, I am also trying to make it as eco-friendly of a Thanksgiving as I can! First, the invitations I sent were made of recycled paper and printed with soy ink. I also got some great suggestions from a pamphlet I got from Whole Foods when we ordered the turkey.

No, I am not “technically” cooking the turkey…I am buying one pre-cooked from Whole Foods. There are several reasons for this. In addition to my own inexperience with cooking meat of any kind, we have a strange mini-oven in this house that won’t hold a whole turkey. Also, the turkeys from Whole Foods were allowed to range free their whole life and fed on vegetarian grains (not chopped-up pieces of other birds. Yes, this is usually what poultry are fed to fatten them by most factory farms. If you don’t believe me, read the book The Way We Eat).

The pamphlet said that using real plates, forks, and glasses and washing them in the dishwasher reduces waste and is more energy efficient. Not that I have anything fancy, we are just using our usual stuff. We only have one set of plate, folks. They are neutral on purpose for that reason. I wouldn’t know what to do with china if I had it. It would be a waste of space for us.

The thing that is really getting me, though, is the tablecloth. I figure I probably need one so that I can clean up the table easily by putting the whole thing in the washing machine. However, I have a weird size of table (54 x 54 square when the leaf to extend it is put in place). The Whole Foods pamphlet suggested that the most eco-friendly tablecloth would be one I could get from a thrift store. I thought that was a great idea! …Until I spend most of Saturday driving around to various stores and so far haven’t found even one tablecloth. The only ones left to visit are those that are more than 30 minutes away. Not only do I not have the time to do that, it really isn’t eco-friendly if you consider all the fossil fuel I am burning on that ridiculous search which probably won’t even yield anything.

I tried Googling “eco tablecloth” and so far haven’t found anything under $50. I am not spending that much on something I am probably going to use once. We are not really tablecloth people.

I have one more idea…I had a tablecloth I bought on sale after Christmas 2 years ago that fits the table without the leaf in it. I am going to see if it still fits the table when the leaf is in.