Thanksgiving is usually a wonderful time of the year. It kicks off the holiday season and offers a time for family and friends to gather together to eat and enjoy each other's company. But if you are hosting the get-together, the holiday can be much more stressful. Not only do you have to cook and serve the food, you also have to clean up your house before company arrives and make sure that it is decorated for the season. Although this can appear stressful, it doesn't have to be if you plan carefully. Here are some tips to enhance your home with fun, festive and appropriate decorations through the use of stuffed animals. These delightful plush toys can do wonders in creating the right look for the Thanksgiving holiday and their cuteness can cut your stress in other ways.

Thanksgiving is associated with fall colors like orange, brown, dark red, and gold, so these colors should be your first priority in decorating. Your décor should reflect the beautiful colors of fall foliage. To use stuffed animals to their best advantage for Thanksgiving decoration, you should select some animals that fall naturally into this color range and get some plush toys in authentic shades. Some good ones include the rusty red fox, the brown bunny, chipmunks, the majestic moose, and cute squirrels. Soon you will have some excellent home decorating accessories.

Overall Home Decorations

Let's start with your home in general. Try putting a rustic red fox or a brown moose on your sofa. It will be both cute and seasonal. You could add some acorns on the coffee table around the lamp and have a plush chipmunk or squirrel holding a couple. Anywhere you need an extra decoration you can make your own “salad bowl” filled with leaves, pinecones, or a some of each with a stuffed animal as the centerpiece. This can be charming and you are sure to have good results as long as you choose toys that are natural in color and appearance.

Dinner Table Decorations

You may already have some of the standard dinner table decorations of the season, such as turkeys and pumpkins. A few stuffed animals can add some fun and cheer to these arrangements. For instance, you could place a small pumpkin in the hands of a cute stuffed beaver. Some pretty fall flowers and a stuffed animal could make a unique and festive centerpiece. The natural colors of these animals should already match your tablecloth. If you wish to decorate your chairs, you could acquire some fall leaf vines and wrap them around your guest chairs with a few brown teddy bears hanging off them.

Extra Tips

If you need to decorate the entrance to your home so that your guests can find the right house more easily, you can used animals here as well. Take a run of the mill fall wreath and add a stuffed bunny, or other animal of your choice, and place your toy on a swing from the wreath. You could also create a custom welcome sign and have your animal hold it. You could add your family's name to the sign if you like. Weather permitting, a stuffed moose at the end of the driveway with the welcome sign would be charming.

As you can see, stuffed animals can be a versatile accessory for Thanksgiving. If you have children visiting for the holiday, they can play with them after dinner. If you are feeling generous or just don't wish to store the plush toys for next year, you can let the children have a cool gift to take home with them. Even if you are planning to be a house guest, you could bring a stuffed animal arrangement for the host family and leave the toy as a gift. Remember, use autumn colors and natural appearing plush animals, and you can save on stress and decorate your home for Thanksgiving beautifully!