Creating A Special Holiday Memory With My Children

Happy almost Thanksgiving, everyone!

For all of you that saw my final #OneRoomChallenge Dining Room reveal post, here, you’ll know one of the things I wanted to do was to help my children, (L to R, Scarlet, almost 12, Genevieve, 8, and Grant, 5 ) feel apart of the process, by letting them select their own set of dinnerware.

I also wanted to show them how to set a formal table – although we don’t do this very often at my house..did you notice the name of my blog, CASUALLY Inspired? LOL!…..

Surprisingly, my children really loved the experience of choosing their own dinnerware patterns, and we had a lot of fun on #ORC photo shoot day taking shots of all the mix and matching we did with what they chose.

You can see how all three of their choices got mixed, below.

Grant, my 5 year old, is really into design (He must be taking after his mom!). He loves everything about it and already has decided preferences for the colors blue, black and grey.

When he went to pick out his dinnerware pattern, he was quickly drawn to Kate Spade Charles Lane, because of its colors, which you can buy, here, if you like it as much as Grant does.

Here’s Grant learning how to mix and match, under the watchful eye of big sister Scarlet.

Here’s what all the pieces in the Kate Spade Charles Lane pattern look like:

My youngest daughter, Genevieve, 8, has a whimsical, free spirited style. She loves nature and animal inspired themes so it wasn’t a surprise to me that she chose Kate Spade’s Birch Way dinnerware pattern, which you can buy here, if you love it too.

You can see Genevieve learning to set our dining table with it, below.

Here’s what all the pieces look like in the Birch Way dinnerware pattern.

Scarlet, my almost 12 year old daughter, is a classicist. She’s a budding fashion designer and has a very Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O sense of style.

Scarlet chose Kate Spade’s Larabee Dot in gold as her dinnerware, as polka dots are a classic pattern that will never go out of style.

Completing this year’s #ORC on time was a challenge for me this year, especially after the flooding here in Fayetteville meant a big change of plans, which I wrote about here.

Because of the flooding, though, and seeing what so many families around me went through, it made me want to pull my children even closer to me and include them in all I do in ways that I hope they will find meaningful as they grow older.

Here’s another picture of me surprising my children with a cake, after I had finished my one room challenge.

If I’d had even more time to go shopping for myself before we did this, I might have served the cake on this Jonathan Adler Nixon cake stand I love – and will probably end up buying before this holiday season is over. 🙂

To buy one of these for yourselves or for a gift? Please click here.

It also comes with this matching gold cake knife, shown below.

(Please note: I will make a small % if you buy anything from these links, at no additional cost to you – thank you!).

Before I go, I want to say thank you to each and everyone of you, my clients, who might be reading this.

I know many of you also have children or grandchildren. I am so appreciative of the trust you’ve placed in me and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families in your beautiful homes.

I would also love it if all of you would share with me, in the comments, the holiday traditions you have put in place with your own children.

Please help me and all of the readers of this blog learn what your children have loved and found meaningful. Thank you!

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”

Cheers!

Jana Donohoe, ASID

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