My Thanksgiving Outfit... for Eatin'!

About a week ago, I was discussing what I was thinking about to wear for Thanksgiving with Karen, and, well, this is verbatim:

Jeanne: I want to write a post on Thanksgiving fashion and "eatin' dresses"
Karen: Oh, yes, you must.
NO TIGHTS
I made that mistake one year.
Jeanne: Because my feeling is that I should wear a dress to eat lots of food, but -- EXACTLY

Thus the dilemma: I don't have fancy pants that I would feel comfortable eating a full meal in (in fact, I may not even have fancy pants), and for some reason I feel weird wearing pants to family events. I also don't like wearing dresses with bare legs for family events unless it's the middle of summer, and, well, Thanksgiving is not in the middle of summer. And when you're sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, the last thing you want to think about is the waistband of your tights getting tighter and tighter around your stomach. (Let's not get into the "I'm spending the morning cooking in my pajamas because this food needs to be done, dang it, I don't have TIME to shower and get cute if you all want to EAT" situation.)

I've planned for the "eatin' dress" before -- dresses with little to no pressure on the stomach. (The phrase comes from Margaret Cho's Notorious C.H.O. -- "you go home, you put on your eatin' dress, and then you eat the couch.") But I have yet to deal with the eatin' plus covering my legs conundrum.

And so when I was browsing through one of my favorite boutiques on Friday, I realized -- ah hah, over the knee socks! I'd meant to pick some up at some point, but obviously didn't make it a priority until I swung through Japantown and realized I could buy socks at Amiko. Of course! And thus I now have a pair of over-the-knees to cover my shins and bruised kneecaps, but not press on my turkey-full tummy.

Of course, instead of actually focusing on packing, I made a Polyvore of my outfit:

It's not an exact copy of my dress -- mine is more of a spaghetti-strap baby doll, but it's still black and white buffalo plaid, and I'm still going to wear it over a pink long-sleeve top with the OTK socks and flats. (I wish I had Repetto flats, but no, I'll be wearing the Volatile Harp flats as pictured in my ballerina outfit.)

Jewelry and make-up will be simple -- my standard small silver jewelry, which lately has been just a single necklace and tiny skull studs, both from Dogeared Jewelry. The necklace is particularly important to me on Thanksgiving, as it's a daily reminder of my late grandma, who passed not long after Thanksgiving '05. Since I'll be busy eating, I'll probably go with a tinted lip balm like Fresh Sugar Rose instead of lipstick so I don't have to keep retouching -- I can just keep eating! And if I have time, I'd like to paint my nails with Chanel nail polish in "Jade" for an interesting contrast, but who knows if I'll get the chance...!

What are you planning on wearing for Thanksgiving? Is it a holiday that you like to dress up for, or are you more concerned with getting the meal out on the table? Either way, here's to a good one for us all!

image from polyvore.com