Antique Turkey Platters and Old Fashioned Silverware

Hi! Happy Thanksgiving to all  my friends here. I love Thanksgiving, such a warm and loving holiday. I always enjoy the preparations---I can't even call it ''work'' ---that many of us do each year.
I thought this page from Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer was so handy. I cut it out and taped it inside a cupboard door. Sure I've made a zillion turkey dinners ---I still have to try hard to get it just right.

But first I have to dig out the turkey plates and platters. I'm not sure if I showed you the platters, or just my plate collection. But since I get the platters out each year, to unwrap and enjoy---we can take another look. Turkey platters are I think, so fun and festive. I believe they are an American tradition, though many of the best platters were English Staffordshire china. Maybe every home should have just one, but somehow I have accumulated five. Sofar!

I usually only use the biggest Spode platter. I like its weight and shape.

It's English.

This one is marked Japan.

Unmarked, maybe USA, by Johnson Brothers. Similar to the one above but not exactly the same.

A small size, of good quality but unknown origin.

A delightfully garish Woolworth's style tin platter.

The details are so charming~! They almost always show the turkey in a field, with a house or cabin in the background.

They almost always have a fruit border. Though the Spode platter has dainty flower baskets instead.

One side  of the scene always has naturalistic etched design of wild seeds, weeds, brambles---and leaves and underbrush.

I love this one, with its prickly pods, so familiar, though I don't know what the tree is. [we called the pods gumballs?] edit: a sweet gum tree.

The scenes are transferred designs, usually in brown / sepia, though all colors were made. [I yearn for a blue version, and black], then the colors were tinted by hand, some more skillfully than others.

Another nostalgic chore is polishing the silverware. I know it's not fashionable to use silver utensils nowadays. They do need light polishing if not used daily. But it's a family tradition and I love my set. Like having ''wedding china'', this is the only way I'd ever be organized to have enough flatware for a holiday party.

My dad made the box, with cherry wood from a friend's trees. The silver was given to me as gifts, from my parents, for years, as I accumulated a goodly set.

As a child it was my job to polish the silver.
 My brother never helped. [For some reason I feel like he and my dad went hunting on Thanksgiving morning, but--probably not. A mystery.] And I've never been able to convince my kids that it could be fun! And it's now their job. Nope, here I am, a few days before the holiday, silver polish and a soft cloth in hand.

This lovely set of Victorian pearl handled silver fruit utensiles was a gift from an antiques dealer friend, back during Brooklyn days.

When I opened the old flannel cover, inside also were also silver ladles [top left, below] plus a couple more, including a sugar shell,. For cranberry sauce, creamed onions, etc etc. Very useful and treasured for the memory of a good friend.  [He sold me most of my blue transferware...].

Mo loves to help! He is sharing his beloved Gator dolly, I guess we'll have gator wings, lol.

[no, Mo, not really!]

I hope your holiday is wonderful, with friends and family, and good memories. Good times.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

Look east...full moon rises.

look southwest, the sun sets on another day.

The fence and pink moon.

The walkway. And the moon. The Hunters' Moon, November.