My Holiday Table...

Winter has always been one of my favorite seasons! I love the colors, twinkling lights, and preparations for the holiday season. Now that we have children holidays are so much more precious. I love to see the holiday's through my children's eyes and find new ways to create sweet family traditions and memories.

This year, we hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our home. We've been under construction for some time and I wanted an excuse to set the dining room table, which often looks sad and vacant all by itself. I also wanted my children to help prepare the meal and assist me with creating a beautiful holiday table scape. I love to find ways that my children can help with our traditions, whether it be cooking or cleaning, or in this case setting the table. From an early age, Wyatt has been able to set the table - in fact he could push his chair in before he could walk! So table manners and understanding place settings is important to me. 

This year both children, Wyatt (5) and Charlotte (2), set the table, picked out the place settings, helped with the creating the place cards, and chose where each family member would be seated. One of the delights of our Christmas Eve dinner was when Wyatt explained to each guest why there was a "charger" at the table. In his words, "A charger welcomes you to the table, it holds your place at the table till you arrive, and lets you know this is a special occasion!" 

my tips for setting a holiday table scape with children:

• Select Your Theme Colors: Pick two colors and infuse them throughout your table, this will make it feel cohesive and tied together (we chose hunter green and gold for our holiday theme). Have the children assist with selecting the colors, and the items to surround the table. 
• Use Chargers! How often do you break these things out? If you don't have any, you can easily pick up beautiful plastic chargers (which I used for the kids) at Michaels, in all colors and textures, for just a dollar or so! And you can reuse them year after year. We own several gold chargers to fill in gaps since I only have 8 real chargers that match me dining set. As you set the table, explain to your children what each piece of the dining set is, how it is used, and where it should be placed; then after arranging one place setting as the example, let them set the remainder of the table. This simple activity, not only builds their confidence but allows then to be a part of the dinner. They will take such joy in showing your guests their handy work and explaining why each piece of silverware or cup is placed where it is. 
• Coordinate Flatware: One way to really make your table appear grand for a special occasion is matching flatware. However, most of us only own one set of flatware. Although I'd love wooden or a gold set of flatware, my husband things I'm crazy because of the care (i.e.: hand washing) that would need to be performed to preserve them, so my biggest dining room hack is that for special occasions I always buy matching plastic flatware in a shade that matches my table! In this case GOLD! You can purchase a large set for just dollars at Party City or Target, and honestly they look spectacular, and they hold up well. The set pictured here were actually from Charlotte's birthday party last year, so I was able to get multiple uses out of it. 
• Real Napkins & Napkin Rings: Another simple way to dress up a table is using real napkins and napkin holder for special occasion dinners or meals. I know, paper napkins are so much easier! Especially with kids, plus there are so many pretty designs and styles. However, I love to dress a table up for a holiday or birthday with real napkins, specifically chosen to match the table scape, and napkin rings to add the icing on the cake. If you don't have napkin rings, you can easily make a beautiful setting, by simply tying twine around the napkins, or a piece of yarn or string. This small detail simply welcomes your guests to the table, and let's everyone know that this meal is meant to be special. Have your children assist with folding and arranging each napkin in your chosen ring. Then let them set the table. 
• Place Cards: Setting place cards is such a small, intimate detail that can simply dress your table up and give it just a little sparkle. In this case, the children helped me cut rosemary from our garden, and we simply glued each piece to a plain gift card where we wrote each dinner guest's name. Each piece of rosemary was cut differently, which just gave the table character, some pieces were fat and long, some short and skinny, the irregularity of it made the table feel more homey. The best part was that the kids could help with each step, and then they set each piece out to announce the seating for our guests. 
• Glasware: For special occasions, in this case Christmas Eve, I like to break out All my glassware. I love the varying weights of glasses, the density of a water goblet, the featherweight of a long stemmed white wine glass, the mass of red wine glass, and so on. I've learned with my children, that allowing them to participate in everyday elements, even holding real glassware is important to building confidence. So in these instances, I also give each child, and/or teenager real glassware. For the children, I like to use weighted real glass goblets, and fill them with something special like sparkling cider or white wine grape juice (non alcoholic!). For teenagers, I like to give them real wine glasses (this is after all Christmas - who doesn't want things to feel special?!). And I let them pick their choice of the sparkling offerings. I love the way a full table looks with real water goblets and wine glasses (whether there used or not!). Just give me a lovely dinner with no water bottles or ugly insulate thermos - and man I'm a happy camper!
• Music: One of my biggest petpieves is having tv on during a family sit-down dinner. Especially Fox News.... cough, cough. Hint, hint extended family! We were blessed with a record player several years ago from my brother as an early Christmas gift. So each year we take time collecting new and old holiday records, some acoustic, some with more pep. We love to play records during our sit-down meals. I even enjoy when the record stops, having to take in the quiet moment, then get up and pick out the next record to accompany our meal. 

What are some of your favorite entertaining ideas?

xo, Kassy

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