Three Ways To Style Your Christmas Table

Styling the table for Christmas is a favourite part of my Christmas preparations. My Christmas table, like my Christmas decor, is heavily influenced by natural foliage, and I gather it from my garden and the fields surrounding my home to use on the table. This is a lovely thing to do with the kids and the dog, and it has become part of our Christmas tradition.

The Christmas tablecloth is always the starting point, and our wipe-clean tablecloth comes into its own at Christmas. Its linen-like appearance creates an elegant, classical look for your table, conjuring the smart linen tablecloth I remember on my Grandparents' Christmas table as a child. But the inevitable spills and mess wipe away, leaving you able to enjoy the Christmas day walk or snooze without changing the tablecloth ahead of Christmas tea.

Here I've created three ways to style the Christmas table.

1. The Stars Table

Unlike the other two tablecloths featured here, the stars tablecloth is essentially a Christmassy print featuring gold and silver stars. I think it is important to have a generous overhang of tablecloth; the overall picture is accentuated by the elegant drape of the tablecloth. You can read our guide to measuring your table for a tablecloth here

For this Christmas table, I weaved foliage in and around glass Clemmie candlesticks along the centre of the table. Starting at one end, I worked my way along, ensuring each piece pointed in the same direction to create a cohesive look. When placing the candlestick, arrange the foliage on either side to cover the base of the candle holder. I used Berried Ivy, Bay, and Rosemary, all foraged from my garden. Here are some other ideas for creating foliage garlands for the table.

• Berried Ivy
• Rosemary
• Holly
• Eucalyptus
• Dried Hydrangeas
• Pomegranate
• Dried Oranges

I picked out Mustard & Ivory Danish dinner candles from our range of Danish dinner candles, and then, to elevate the overall look, dotted tiny gold glass tree decorations along the foliage. I also placed these upon each place setting, and they do make wonderful table presents if that is your thing.

2. The Green Table.

The green of our green gingham tablecloth is an easy shade of green to work with, and offers a wonderful canvas against which to build your Christmas table. 

I wanted to incorporate natural foliage into my Christmas table, combining the traditional Christmas greenery with crisp white linen napkins. Our table is a traditional Victorian pine farmhouse table, and although reasonably large, it is important to keep the settings simple to avoid a busy, overstimulating look!

With that in mind, I created a Christmas table centrepiece, using a large Tulip plant pot from our range. This I planted with a Hellebore, and finished with moss gathered from the garden. I then added the rusted crown to give the centrepiece height, but not so high as to obscure conversation! I added candle holders down the centre of each side, using Bordeaux red dinner candles, to create a rich, warm Cranberry hue of Christmas, and finished with some pumpkin tealight holders.

Keeping things simple, I used seagrass placemats from our range with white dinner plates and white linen napkins. Upon each napkin, I created a pretty place setting with a sprig of Rosemary, Bay and large rosehips. I tied these with twine, but raffia or velvet ribbon would add a more luxurious style.

I am a big fan of an over-the-table hanging decoration, and these pretty white tissue snowflakes accentuate the crisp white of the place settings to complete the look.

3. The Red Table

The red Christmas table brings a rich, warm and cosy look to the Christmas table. The red gingham has long been a favourite for Christmas, and is used by us at home. For this look, I had in mind a more rustic approach. Again, I wanted to use foliage to create the table centrepiece. Our versatile Indian brick mould is ideally proportioned for a table centrepiece, and accommodates a 170-hour pillar candle perfectly. I added foliage around the large pillar candle to create an eye-catching table centrepiece, using rosehips to tone the overall look with the red check of the tablecloth.

I added the glass London candle holders, this time picking out the classic red and Bordeaux red dinner candles.

Denby blue plates, paired with Olive napkins, make a great contrast against the red check of the tablecloth. And once again, I used the antique glass decorations. The rich red velvet hangers on these made a pretty contrast with the tablecloth's red. And finally, I used the giant paper snowflake over the table to complete the look.

Incorporating natural foliage is such a simple way to create beautiful Christmas decor and each of these three tablescapes use evergreen foliage from the garden and combine it with a different tablecloth to create different festive styles.