Business first: my Thanksgiving 2020 OOTD! Friends, trust me when I say that the most effortless holiday outfit is the knit midi dress. Yes, even when you have a food baby, this thing looks GOOD, and here’s why.
First off, if you’re like me and like a smooooooooth silhouette, you gotta put your Spanx on underneath. I used the shorts variety, which IMO is the least fussy and most comfortable option (here they are on sale).
Secondly, if you’re going for a close-to-your-curves model of knit midi, the lines of the dress do the styling for you. You don’t need big accessories or fancy hair – let your body do the talking, honey.
The genius? Those Spanx and your cute knit midi stretch with you as you and your food baby … gestate. Yup, your cute food belly grows, but the Spanx keeps everything smooth – not that, by the end of the night, anyone is paying much attention to anything other than getting themselves in bed to sleep off dinner.
Styling Notes for Your Knit Midi Dress
You can shop my knit midi picks at the end of this post!
I harp on about this because it’s important: keep your lines C L E A N. The midi length has enormous potential to chop your cute body up into weird horizontal sections – so if you can avoid it, don’t wear shoes with ankle straps. Yes, bloggers do this all the f-ing time, and from experience I can tell you that the reason it looks good is because their (and my) photos are taken from a steep, low angle, which makes the legs look long. IRL, though – ya gonna look stumpy if you wear ankle straps. Yes, I have my anklet on (just wait for my sister to jump on that in the comments, she hates it), and yes, that anklet does disrupt the lines somewhat. However, the asymmetry of it (it’s only on one leg) has the paradoxical effect of balancing the line of the leg. See how I talked my way out of that one? Real talk.
I went with a classic, pointed pump, and I suggest you do the same. A pointed pump grounds this look into the “classics” territory and away from being overly trendy, which for the holidays just feels right.
It should be noted, however, that whilst cooking I did NOT wear four-inch stilettos. My cooking outfit looked more like this:
Let’s Talk About Thanksgiving 2020
Or rather, commemorative moments in general: 2020 has taught us to find joy in the seemingly mundane. The razzle dazzle of nights out, big parties, parades in the streets, and packed dining rooms was stripped away from us this year.
This has left us with a challenge: how do we celebrate what’s left?
The reality is that the majority of life is made of those mundane moments. Ordinary objects, uneventful hours. That’s just how it goes.
And yet, it’s still a gift.
I’ve noticed a growing culture of gratitude here in the US, which of course is a great thing. It’s been put to the test this year, though, hasn’t it? It’s forced the issue of selective gratitude – are we only to be thankful for the Big Things, the birthday parties, the Beyonce concerts, the vacations – or is real happiness grounded in the ordinary?
I’m saying all this because, like many families, mine couldn’t gather this year. And that’s hard. We’re all scattered through four states and don’t get to see each other much, with the exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s real loss there. We only have so many moments together, and the pandemic taxed them heavily. It’s OK to be sad about that – I know I am.
At the same time, my mama taught me to always do the best with what I have. To make the best out of any situation. And so I thought to myself as I lay in my coffee stained men’s undershirt on the sofa, “am I going to let celebrations go by, and sit here on the couch this Thanksgiving, or am I going to make something of it?”
Hence all the fuss over “nothing” that really is quite something
I knew full well that our Grand Thanksgiving Dinner would only have my husband, our nephew, and me as guests. To be blunt, those two guys aren’t big talkers, especially when they’re eating, so I knew in all likelihood that dinner would be a quiet affair. No stories from my aunts, no impromptu lessons on particle physics from Papa Mendes. But again: let’s celebrate the ordinary.
Hence the tablescape, the candles, the enormous quantity of food, the turkey that I grossly over salted, the gravy in a cereal bowl, the big hair, the knit midi dress from an outrageous designer brand off of Rent the Runway, the whole pomp and circumstance so that the three of us could sit together and have a very, very ordinary meal.
I am so, so glad that we did it. Otherwise that day would have just flown by, no bookmarks, no recognition, just faded away.
I hope you find a way that works for you to celebrate the little things this year. Send word back, let me know how it goes.
love,
Stig.
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