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Setting a Beautiful Holiday Table
From The Christmas Kitchen A Gathering Place for Making Memories
by Tammy Maltby
• You don’t need a lot of fancy dishes to set an elegant Christmas table. Start with a simple set of white or cream dishes and some serving bowls and platters in the same color. (They don’t have to match exactly). Add sparkle and color with accessories such as table linens, flowers, candles, and greenery.
• Look for one-of-a-kind serving dishes in closeout stores, antique stores, and yard sales. If you want to invest in special Christmas dishes, I suggest starting with a set of soup bowls or salad plates in a pattern that coordinates with your basics.
• One of the simplest and most dramatic ways to dress up your table is to use chargers under your plates. Look for these in discount stores in gold, silver, cranberry color, black, or whatever you choose. Use in place of placemats or tablecloth.
• Ornaments from a discount store make adorable, colorful napkin rings. Simply put the hanging loop around the napkin and lay the ornament on top—a supremely easy splash of “ta da.”
• Make generous use of natural materials to decorate. God did such a beautiful job of decorating the earth, and you can never go wrong with following His lead! Bring in pine boughs (from your yard or a Christmas tree lot), pine cones, magnolia leaves, nuts, fruits. I love pomegranates and adorable orange kumquats! Tuck greenery around the edges of platters and make generous use of herbs and spices as garnish. But be careful using holly or mistletoe around food—they’re toxic if ingested.
• For a wonderful and fragrant natural touch, bind evergreens and herbs together in bundles with florist’s wire. Cover wire with a big bow and tie the bundles on the backs of your dining chairs.
• For a stunning Christmas centerpiece, choose your favorite glass bowl—I use three of them different sizes. Put in fresh cranberries, baby oranges, and holly greens. Add water and floating candles on top. You can also use whole lemon and limes or nuts in the shell with the cranberries and greens.
• Decorate liberally with candles—columns, votives, tapers. A generous collection of cream candles in crystal holders of different heights and sizes and clustered on a mirror creates an absolutely stunning tablescape or centerpiece. For meals, keep the candles scentless. Everywhere else, seasonally scented candles are a great way to make your whole house smell Christmasy.
• Create a three-dimensional tablescape that looks good with or without platters of food. (I leave mine up the entire month.) Drape the table in a white tablecloth, then use boxes in three sizes to create a cluster of “platforms” of different heights. Drape another tablecloth over the boxes and arrange it so it “flows” around the boxes. Drape a real or artificial garland of greens over and around the boxes and add candlesticks of various sizes to the arrangement. When guests come, place some serving dishes on the box “platforms” and some on the table (use ceramic or glass pedestals from the discount store if you have them). After the party, take away the dishes, brush away the crumbs and the tablescape becomes pure decoration.
• If you don’t have an extra table for a buffet, a folding banquet table is a worthwhile investment. Drape a floor-length cloth over the top and no one will be the wiser!
Simple Idea: For beautiful snowy table settings, look for 100% white cotton tablecloths at closeout shops or the restaurant section of a discount club. The cotton can be bleached—so they’ll always look fresh without kid-glove treatment. I store mine loosely folded and draped over sturdy hangers in a closet.
Simple Idea: My very favorite all-time decorating item is tulle, that fine netting often used for wedding veils. You can find it in a rainbow of colors at a fabric or discount store for less than a dollar a yard. I buy it by the bolt at Christmastime and use it to drape through tree branches, wrap presents, tie as decorative bows or napkin rings, or lay over white tablecloths as festive table runners.
Simple Idea: Lighting is one of the most effective ways to decorate and create an atmosphere. In rooms where no one will be reading or doing close work, keep the lighting gentle and warm and make liberal use of candles, twinkle lights, and lamps.
Simple Idea: Soak evergreen boughs (from your yard or a Christmas tree lot) in a bathtub full of warm (not hot) water for several hours, then pat dry before using for decoration. They’ll soak up the water and stay fresh much longer.
Simple Idea: One of my favorite decorating tools is a simple metallic paint pen in gold, silver, or copper. Use it to paint simple freehand designs (stars, spirals, stripes and dots) on tapers or column candles. White or cream candles look beautiful with gold embellishments; red candles take on an extra-rich look with copper, and blue candles are spectacular with silver. (Sometimes the paint pen with scratch up little grains of wax, but these are easily brushed off.) If you wish, you can write guests’ names on clear glass ornaments, tie the ornaments with bows to match the pens, and place them in stemmed water glasses as place holders!
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