fall white decor

Get inspired with these 23 easy ideas for fall home hospitality and tablescapes and pumpkin pie spice cake. In a hurry? Jump to Recipe

23 Easy and Simple Ideas for Fall Hospitality

I hope these easy and simple ideas for fall hospitality will inspire you. If you’re like me, I love to look through magazines for ideas. And I like to go shopping occasionally just to look (or buy something that looks perfect for a tablescape).

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List of fall ideas for home hospitality and tablescapes:

Perhaps, you’ll think of a new idea when reading the list or remember to use one that you had forgotten.

  1. Place fresh flowers in a vase on the dining room table or coffee table.
  2. Light autumn-scented candles like Macintosh Apple.
  3. Spray an apple, fig, pomegranate, or pumpkin room spray instead of lighting candles if you prefer.
  4. Design a fall centerpiece with fall leaves and soft greens for an earthy autumn touch.
  5. Provide pleasant background music (great way to generate a feeling of cozy comfort).
  6. Consider decorating your entryway table with a seasonal centerpiece of flowers from your garden.
  7. Introduce your color scheme decor with fall touches on the porch.
  8. Go all out with pumpkin arrangements for the porch and inside the home.
  9. Choose a neutral fall tablescape with white pumpkins, white plates, and natural materials like fresh herbs, pumpkins, flowers and branches.
  10. Fill wicker baskets with fall magazines and autumn-colored throws.
  11. Dough Bowl…Place faux fruit in it for the entryway or coffee table, or bread on the dining table.

  12. Head to your local Dollar Tree or thrift stores to pick up inexpensive simple fall tablescape decorations for your special occasion.
  13. Visit a florist and choose one of their fall floral arrangements for your autumn table prior to a dinner party.
  14. Dress up the table with a white tablecloth, and top it with a pretty tablerunner in autumn colors.
  15. Serve your guests selections from your favorite fall recipes, family favorite dishes that promise to satisfy everyone’s taste buds.
  16. Use cloth napkins and napkin rings to produce an elegant touch for your table decor.
  17. Opt for simple fall tablescape ideas such as paper plates, paper napkins, and a plaid tablecloth in a fall design.
  18. Decorate your dinner table in such an easy way that it doesn’t break your budget.
  19. Fancy up your beautiful fall tablescape by using place cards, a floral centerpiece, and little pumpkins, white or fall colors.
  20. Host your family Thanksgiving dinner, and ask guests to bring a dish and a festive decorative Thanksgiving tablescape item.
  21. For fun, start your autumn table decor with one item, and add only one item weekly during the season.
  22. Make an easy project that includes natural fall elements like mini pumpkins and fall leaves to decorate each place setting.
  23. Use simple cheesecloth as a beautiful tablerunner, or order cheesecloth tablerunner colors for all seasons: 

 

Fall Hospitality Ideas for Every Home

This blog post offers ideas that can work for every home. They also include a mixture of easy and inexpensive ways to decorate for fall home hospitality and tablescapes.

Greet your guests with pumpkins and apples for a happy fall feel the moment they walk in the door.

Use Natural Elements

First thing, use natural elements of the fall season. Bring in the color palette and fall colors you see outdoors during this time of year.

Next, choose scents and favorite things from the fall season to guide you in decorating and preparing a fall table setting. For example, bake an apple cake, light a fig-scented candle, and spray an apple room spray, creating a fall atmosphere.

Show hospitality at home with a fall tablescape and this pumpkin spice cake with butter frosting. Bake a pumpkin dessert with fresh pumpkin.

Jump to Recipe

 

If you like apple, try the Macintosh-scented candle. It’s amazing!

Apple and Pumpkin Candles

Light two candles, apple and pumpkin, for a cozy warm greeting to your guests. Set the apple candle near the entry of your home, and place the pumpkin candle in your kitchen.

Smelling both apple and pumpkin indicates something sweet. It suggests a hint of a delectable dessert like the Pumpkin Spice Cake, Jump to Recipe

Decorate a tablescape, prepare a meal, and light the candles. You’ll welcome your guests with warm and cozy feelings.

Is hospitality more than entertaining?

The question, “Is hospitality more than entertaining?”, will result in differing opinions. It depends on who you are asking.

I love Megan Hill’s view about hospitality versus entertaining. She says, “Hospitality is more than entertaining. But it doesn’t have to be less.”

Megan shows examples from the Bible of how the best was presented to guests.  She mentions that “throughout Scripture, hosts honor their guests with extraordinarily effort-consuming hospitality. Abraham fed his angelic guests meat that was “tender and good” with cakes made from “fine flour” (Gen. 18:6–7).”

Definitions of Entertaining and Hospitality

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, entertaining (used as a noun) means inviting people to your home, giving them food and drink.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines hospitality as “a friendly welcome for guests or strangers, which often includes offering them food, drink, etc.”.

To sum it up, both words mean guests are coming over, and you’re offering them food and drink.

What does the Bible say about offering hospitality?

1 Peter Chapter 4, Verses 9-10 (NIV) says:

9 “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

What are Your Gifts?

Maybe you love to bake and you feel like that is your gift. Perhaps, you love to decorate. Or you have a humorous personality that stimulates laughter and good conversation. More than likely, you have more than one gift.

If you love to bake, decorate a tablescape that focuses on something you’ve baked. Add a touch of nature from the current season. However you decide to decorate, choose something that brings you joy.

Serving Others

Showing hospitality in the home certainly means you are serving others. But by doing so, you are using your God-given talents in serving guests. In essence, you are putting others before yourself.

The important thing is serve others in ways that you enjoy.

Whether you use flowers, candle, or a pumpkin, the decorating style that brings you joy will result in the perfect fall tablescape. And that may mean that you prefer only a simple glass cake stand with a beautiful cake. And that’s perfect as well.

Decorate the Kitchen Table in Your Style

Do you decorate the kitchen table according to the season, your current mood, or strictly your interior design style? How would your friends describe your decorating style?

In decorating the kitchen table, I often include a favorite scented candle. A candle can fit all styles. Its scent brings about emotion like cozy comfort.

Decorating Styles

Not sure what your style is? Have fun decorating in your style with a touch of the current season. Take a little time to explore these decorating styles to see which suits you best:

  • minimalist
  • modern farmhouse
  • cottage
  • rustic
  • traditional
  • eclectic
  • French country
  • Bohemian
  • mid-century modern
  • other

Decorating with Vintage 

When coming up with ideas for fall home hospitality and tablescapes, think about decorating with vintage pieces. Vintage means history, family, life’s journey, nostalgic, and comfort.

I included the cotton in this photo because it brings back memories of cotton tales from my dad. All the family picked the cotton, even the kids. My dad’s sister said the most she ever picked was 134 pounds in one day.

Fall and Cotton Season Tablescape
Fall and Cotton Season Tablescape

Cotton harvesting can extend into November in some states. In my home state, Texas, cotton is usually harvested from July through the early part of fall.

Decorating a fall tablescape with pumpkins

What memories do you think of when you’re decorating a fall tablescape with pumpkins?

pumpkin table decor
Fall Pumpkin Tablescape

Many times through the years, I’ve baked pumpkin bars from freshly-boiled pumpkins. Decorating a tablescape in the fall with pumpkins reminds me of going to pumpkin farms when my daughter was little. She picked the pumpkin, and I cooked it and made pumpkin bars.

Now I get to make fall pumpkin memories with my grandchildren. For instance, I’veI boiled pumpkin, made pumpkin spice cake, and roasted pumpkin seeds.

pumpkin farms with grandchildren
Pumpkin Patch Memories

You’d think finding festive fall napkins would be fairly easy when decorating a fall tablescape with pumpkins. Not necessarily so. Look on Amazon if you can’t find what you want locally.

 

Plan a meal with a pumpkin dessert

Plan a meal for your guests, and top it off with a pumpkin dessert. Need suggestions for the dessert? Here are a few:

  1. pumpkin bars
  2. pumpkin pie
  3. pumpkin spice cake
  4. pumpkin cinnamon rolls
  5. pumpkin fruit dip
  6. pumpkin dump cake

Make this Pumpkin Spice Cake with Butter Frosting:

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Butter Frosting

Pumpkin cake made with fresh pumpkin and butter frosting

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Servings 20
Calories 235 kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups cooked fresh pumpkin, mashed
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Butter Frosting

  • 1 stick salted butter
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

How to Cook a Pie Pumpkin

  1. Cut the top off of a pie pumpkin.

    how to prepare a pumpkin for boiling
  2. Cut the pumpkin into two halves.

  3. Scrape out the seeds and stringy part of the inside of the pumpkin.

  4. Set the seeds aside in a cup or bowl.

  5. Pour water into a large pot, half-full.

  6. Add the two pumpkin halves to the water and heat to boiling.

  7. Boil approximately 20 minutes (or until pumpkin is soft when cut through with a knife).

  8. Scoop out the pumpkin into a bowl and cool at room temperature.

  9. Discard the outer part of the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

  2. Grease a 9x13-inch glass pan.

  3. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in a bowl and whisk together, then set aside.

  4. Mix the vegetable oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cooled pumpkin, and vanilla extract in a separate bowl.

  5. Add the vegetable oil mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together until smooth.

  6. Pour into the greased baking dish, and bake for 30-35 minutes.

  7. Test it at 30 minutes by putting a toothpick in the center of the cake.

  8. If the toothpick looks clean, the cake is done.

  9. Cool the cake on a hot pad or trivet.

Butter Frosting

  1. Soften butter in the microwave by using the defrost method.

  2. Add the vanilla extract.

  3. Mix in the powdered sugar with a hand mixer on low (carefully so that the sugar doesn't scatter everywhere) a little at a time.

  4. Beat at medium to high speed for 2 minutes after the butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar are mixed well.

  5. Spread the frosting onto the cooled pumpkin cake.

  6. The cake is easier to slice when it has set for an hour or more in the fridge.

  7. But if you can't wait, go ahead and enjoy a piece of warm pumpkin spice cake freshly topped with butter frosting.

Recipe Notes

Assuming that you have butter, oil, and spices on hand, the estimated cost of this recipe is $7.00.

You can see that I used a glass baking dish for this recipe. The glass dish I like to bake in also comes with a red cover similar to this one:

 

A Pumpkin Cake for the Fall

Make this very yummy fall cake (one of the easiest pumpkin desserts I’ve ever made): Pumpkin Pecan Dump Cake.

How do you decorate in the fall with pumpkins? What is the go-to pumpkin dessert that you enjoy making for fall occasions?

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