Preparing the Christmas Table

It doesn’t take a lot of preparing the Christmas Table, to be looking festive and beautiful for the height of the season!

You don’t need to be a decorator or spend a lot of money to make it look great. But having a beautifully decorated table can really set the tone for your festive feast – so take a few minutes to think about how you would like it to look for this special time of year!

Here are some helpful tips on making a magnificent statement with your Christmas table setting.

Decide on Your Colour Scheme

Choose two colours that will match in with the rest of your Christmas Decorations. Green and red are always popular, but if you want to be different, try colour combinations such as Purple and Gold or Blue and Silver.

Choose the lighter colour of the two for your tablecloth. If you don’t want to go to the expense of purchasing a tablecloth just for Christmas, consider buying a length of paper table runners in the colour of your choice. Most party suppliers will stock them and they are an inexpensive and beautiful option for your table. Quite often, you can just buy the paper by the metre and throw it away afterwards.

Decide on Your Centrepiece

Again, centrepieces don’t have to be elaborate or expensive. Consider freshly cut flowers from the garden, or a few pine cones decorated with some tinsel. If you are very creative, perhaps try a Gingerbread House or some toffee apples and give your guests something to look forward to at the end of the meal. Other ideas can include:

• Candles (tea lights are cheap and cheerful)
• Native gum nuts (spray them gold or silver)
• Lollies, lollies and more lollies
• Bowl of assorted uncracked nuts
• Fairy lights (a lot are battery operated now, so no long leads are necessary)

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Clare Whitfield Chief Editor

Clare Whitfield is the Editor of Stay at Home Mum and a recognised voice in practical home management for Australian families. Based in the northern suburbs of Sydney, she balances editorial leadership with life as a stay at home mum to two school age children. Her background in home economics and more than a decade of experience in recipe development, family budgeting, and household systems inform her work.

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