October 2025 Round Up

Before you read my ramblings of how to throw a nice Thanksgiving dinner for your friends and family please consider helping those who are food insecure first by making an in-kind or monetary donation to a local food pantry in your area. For those of you living in Bucks County you can find a list of local food pantries in your area on this site. Don’t forget to also check if your company will match monetary donations in full or in part!

After being head’s down in work for all of September and the first half of October I was all prepared to come up for air thirsting for all thing’s Halloween — but this year all I’ve been able to think of is planning for the holiday season. And after a quick search through my old blog posts I realize that it’s actually been a while since I shared one of my favorite things to talk about – Turkey Day planning! I have an entire page dedicated to how I shop, prep, cook dinner and decorate complete with videos but if you want the cliff notes here you go (and if you want to follow along live I’ll be posting to my Instagram stories throughout the week leading up to the feast).

My queen of hosting is Ina Garten and the biggest lesson I’ve learned as an avid student is to do as much in advance as possible so that you can enjoy your own party! So I start prepping a full week before and make 90% of the meal in advance so the day of is as stress-free as possible

Thanksgiving is a list lovers dream and I have lots of them – shopping lists, prep lists and a day-of-timeline – but even if you don’t love making lists you the good news is that you only have to do it once. I use the same ones year after year just making small changes as needed because….

As much as I like trying new recipes I really think Thanksgiving is the one time where consistency is wanted and appreciated. So while I might add some small things to see how they work out (last year I added a Broccoli Salad to add some freshness to the meal) all of the main staples stay the same.

The food is the star of the show so I keep everything else pretty simple and instead invest in really special serving ware – serving dishes, napkins, flatware – and add to my collection when something catches my eye. I also serve everything buffet style on my kitchen island to keep the table clutter to a minimum.

Or if none of that sounds good to you, make your own rules — it’s your home and your table so don’t be afraid to start your own traditions or break with ones that don’t work for your family. My newest favorite tradition is that while I’m cooking dinner I have my boys and my parents decorate our family Christmas tree. They love going through the memories we’ve collected and I love hearing them talk about them while I’m in the kitchen.-

BONUS TIP: Have everyone bring their own Tupperware to bring leftovers home or keep a stock-pile of take out containers on hand! It makes clean up so much easier and saves you the pain of getting your dishes back.

It’s been a while since I did a whole room makeover – and even though I had two others on my project list for this year I pushed those aside to prioritize giving my youngest son a grown up room now that his older brother permanently moved into the playroom. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to their shared room not only because it’s a reminder that they’re growing older, but also because it had some of my absolute favorite projects. Lucky for me the one thing that GOB requested in his new space was super easy to get behind – Bananas! And I found the absolute perfect wallpaper on Spoonflower that instantly transformed the room. While this project is going to take me a while to come together I’m really hoping to get the big pieces in place by Christmas so he can start the year off with a fresh new space.

Click here to read more about the Hilltown House challenge – one To-Do list item checked off each week of the year. The last two months I checked off: