Happy Monday-after-Thanksgiving, friends!
With the arrival of every November comes my favorite tradition: Young People’s Thanksgiving. Ever since Max and I moved into our home in 2012, we’ve been hosting our own version of friendsgiving. We invite our dearest friends (or at least as many that can fit in our tiny house!), don our coziest party clothes, fry a turkey in the driveway, and spend the day through the evening with each other.
My favorite part? When we all go around the table and say one thing we’re thankful for — which, after a few glasses of apple cider sangria (or a particularly difficult year), usually ends up in happy sentimental tears. This year was no different, though I could barely get a single word out without sobbing. Sometimes I need to pinch myself to have friends like these. My people are kind, sincere, hilarious, generous, strong, vulnerable. Just GOOD people. And man am I grateful.
Because Young People’s Thanksgiving is a big deal around here, we started planning the invitations in late summer. We wanted to incorporate deep berry tones, fun and modern hand lettering, and experiment with two color letterpress. A pie was born! Pressed onto square Crane Lettra cotton paper, a hand illustrated pie was first printed in tan to imitate crust, and the wine was then overlaid on top. I love the result — it’s lively, quirky, and a little all over the place — just like us.
To finish it off, we included envelope liners listing people, places, and things we’re especially grateful for this year. This includes our invited guests who got to see their name pop up right when they opened the envelope. Vintage stamps in a warm color palette were the perfect accent to the deep berry envelopes. To match the playful hand lettering style of the invitation itself, guest addresses were written in white calligraphy.
Want some heirloom party invites of your own?
Don’t worry — our actual Young People’s Thanksgiving pies were just as delicious as this paper version.
(Check out a blurry, super-happy snap of all of us below!)
Already pining for next year. xo
