Distlefinks

Good morning, cafe friends!

It's Thanksgiving week! Are you prepared? Cleaning house and cooking? Or are you traveling this week?

My son, John, is coming home this week! Yay! And my mother-in-law is coming to spend a few days with us. So yeah, a lot of house cleaning here, and a little shopping and baking, too.

I'm serving up what I am going to term the "semi-homemade" dinner this year. I ordered the turkey dinner from Busch's, our local grocery store. They always sell and make yummy things. It comes with a twelve pound Amish turkey, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, the stuffing, and the green bean casserole, all cooked and just needs reheating. That will free me up to make my pumpkin pies, cranberry casserole, cranberry salad, and dinner rolls.

When you are a retail family, you try to keep the holidays as simple as possible.

Today, I want to show you my awesome distlefink!

Distle-what?

Distlefink! This bird is a traditional motif in a lot of folk art, especially Pennsylvania Dutch in origin. The name probably comes from a German term referring to a Thistle Finch, or Gold Finch. You will often see this bird on Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs. It's the German version of "bird of happiness", and it's thought to be a symbol of good luck.

I found this awesome Distlefink trivet at a vintage shop here in Saline called The News Arts and Antiques.

I finally got it hung up this weekend. What took me so long? I paired it with this adorable watercolor print. It's actually a greeting card that I found when we were cleaning out the family home a few years back. So sweet! And can you see? Not one, but two Distlefinks! Double the good luck!

Hope you are feeling doubly blessed on this Monday!