Christmas Dinner Details

When it comes to a formal holiday family meal, Thanksgiving usually inspires beautiful tablescapes.  Christmas parties, on the other hand, tend to lean towards a more informal atmosphere where the focus isn't so much on the food but instead, families enjoy present exchanges and games.

But this year, we decided to step it up a notch and decorate for a more formal Christmas dinner. That means breaking out my family's beautiful wedgewood china, the fancy silverware and assembling a breath-taking centerpiece that would only enhance a dinner conversation.

Since we had so much fun with our Thanksgiving Tablescape, Lisa and I decided to make a go at a Christmas tablescape.  Using our combined pieces,we were able to pull together a really stunning dining table set up. With an air of formality, it is functional, beautiful and absolutely perfect for a family Christmas!

Place Settings

Supplies:
- Twine
- Baby's breath
- Arborvitae leaves

Directions:

1. Pick or buy some greenery. Lucky for us, we did not have to venture out farther than the backyard for the arborvitae leaves. They smell superb and provide a softer look than the typical evergreen needle branch used frequently this time of year.
2. Choose a small flower, such as babysbreath, that will pop against the greenery.
3. Secure the flowers and greenery together by tying a small twine bow.

It's that simple. That fresh. And that beautiful!

Place Cards

We chose to spruce up our place cards by attaching a mini bow in the corner. Adds that extra festivity!

Other place card ideas: bells, mini presents, ornaments or stockings.

Tablescape

For our holiday color palate, we relied on silver, reds and greens. These colors allowed the tablescape to be a dining room showpiece up until Christmas dinner.  If elegance is the goal, in lieu of the brighter reds and greens, go with deeper hues.  We leaned towards cranberry for our red but a wine color would be lovely too. And those forest and evergreen colors just shout, "Christmas time!"

For our Christmas centerpiece, we mixed various greenery, pine cones, ornaments, berries and candles.  The Cranberry Mason Jars can make up a centerpiece all their own, as arranged in a previous blog post, but here they blend in to pull the whole look together.

We posted two looks for the dinnerware arrangement. Three of the china plates were stacked together for one look. This works best if the china doesn't have much pattern. In the case of my parent's wedding china, the three tiers really make a statement.

The other arrangement is to tie in more of the red by placing a napkin between the largest plate and underneath the two smaller. That little pop of cranberry effectively pulls in the centerpiece, and solves the question of where to place a linen napkin.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas and holiday season to you all! 

~ Lisa and Marie ~

Sources:
Table Cloth//Tuesday Morning
Candle Holders//Tuesday Morning
Mason Jars//Target
Mini Christmas Bulbs//Target
Floating Candles//Michaels
Place Card Bows//Michaels
Evergreen Sprigs//Michaels