Holiday Series 2019 - Christmas Table Setting

As with everything decoration related, there’s no right or wrong, too much or not enough. Your personal style will always be influenced by factors in and out of your control. There are seven steps that are “essential” for every festive tablescape. BUT… how in-depth you’re going with these steps depends on

• what you have to work with

• what kind of dining experience you want to offer

• the tone and feel you want to set for your guests

• if you want to create a center of attention… etc.

Your choices will dictate the style of serving too! If you have a multi-piece center decoration, you won’t want to remove it from the table - which means you will have to serve the food individually on plates (even the salads) or set up a separate table for all the platters and serving ware. But if you know, you want to “load” the center of the table with all the food, you’ll only need small complementary accessories and not an overproduction of a centerpiece!

Now, let’s see those seven steps in order of “building” the tablescape.

STEP 1. THE BASE

The base might be the uncovered tabletop of your dining table (real wood dining tables have awesome textures and colors, use them!), maybe with a runner on it, or a solid colored tablecloth. Make sure it’s clean and ironed so it looks good and grounds everything on top.

If you use a simple white tablecloth that can be used all year round, in the long run it will save money and offer the most versatility. Think of white as a clean slate for adding color or keeping it neutral.

STEP 2. PLACE MATS / PLATES

When you have your base, the next step is to define the individual place settings for your family and/or guests.

You can do that either with place mats or chargers. These will need to be a contrasting color from your base color. Try to buy items that can be used for other events (non-themed) too, or if you need/want them with specific colors or shapes, you can print them on paper. You’ll use those only once but you won’t need to wash and store them. In any case, find the solution that benefits you the most.

Just to be thorough, in a full, traditional setting, there can be a bread and butter plate (with butter knife) on the top left of the place setting and the order of plates on top of the charger is: main course plate, salad plate and consomme (soup) bowl.

STEP 3. FLATWARE

Flatware goes on either side and in front of the plates. There is an etiquette-driven guide for placing flatware for “every” event from casual to formal to “royal” even, but you only need to do the basic placement if you want.

Dinner knife and soup spoon go on the right side of the plate and dinner fork goes on the left side. If you also have cake fork and dessert/coffee spoon you want to place on the table from the beginning, those go: cake fork closest to the plate on the top, pointing to the right and the spoon above the fork and pointing to the left.

STEP 4. GLASSWARE

The usual set up for glassware is for water tumblers, white and red wine goblets and maybe champagne flutes. The full set up may include all the above and a sherry glass and/or coffee/tea cups (demitasse).

A water tumbler, a wine glass and a champagne flute make up a triangle at the tip of the dinner knife, so on the right side of the place setting.

If you want to have some fun with your glassware, you can mix and match glasses with different colors and shapes.

STEP 5. NAPKINS

You can choose between, paper and cloth napkins or even use both!

You might want napkins that add some contrast to the plate. This helps them stand out a bit and it gives more interest to the table. (But you can’t go wrong with neutral colored napkins either!)

For a simple style, fold the napkins into thirds and place them on top of the plate. There are also many a folding tutorials on the internet both for paper and cloth napkin folding techniques, too!

If you fold your napkins into some kind of festive shape you might not need napkin rings but if you prefer the rings, try clear glass cylinders or neutral shaped and/or colored ones so you can use it for other tablescapes, too. And if you’re a crafter like me, you can always craft your napkin rings from paper, felt, burlap, ribbon, even rosemary sprigs!

I folded my cloth napkin -as seen on the photo - into a bow, secured it with a handmade ring. If you have assigned seats for your holiday meal, you can place a name-tag on the napkin rings, too.

STEP 6. LIGHTING

Battery operated fairy-lights, concealed LED tealights or real candles add an element of sophistication to any table setting.

A candle centerpiece will be an impressive focal point (and it’ll fill the center of the table for added decoration).

For one of this year’s Christmas parties I’ve made a pine tree shaped “cover” that goes over LED tealights. There are small circle and star shaped holes in the side of the paper tree so the light can shine through.

The base of it was painted brown and I made a platform for them so two trees are held together. The platform is also an insert to a gift box so our guests can take them home!

STEP 7. DECORATION, SEASONAL TRINKETS

To add some more personality and holiday cheer to your table, try adding seasonal items like greenery, mini winter trees or ornaments from your Christmas tree. Also, you can use flowers, fresh fruits (seasonal would be best), layered cake stands full of sweets (it’ll be easy to remove if you want to) and any trinkets that mean something to you and/or your guests to fill up the “white” space.

If you’re using a centerpiece, place these trinkets sporadically along the center of the table (runner), clustering them into groups around bigger items. If you’re not using a centerpiece, then fill in the place that remains between the platters and serving dishes that you’ll set in the middle of your table.

I’ve made «gouria» for our guests to take home, and put them into a handcrafted and decorated pillow box, so I’ve place those, too as part of the decoration, near the place settings.

Thank You for spending your free time with this last installment in this year’s «Holiday Series 2019». I hope the task of setting a holiday or celebratory tablescape just became easier and stress-free (as it should be!) for you, too. Remember, that effectively entertaining means recycling and re-purposing your existing serving ware Always consider how you can reuse anything you buy for your table!

Warm regards and wishes for a happy holiday season from

Your very own fairy,

Tünde - Nefeli

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