Happy Holidays
I would like to start off my last blog of the year thanking everyone for their continued support of Tabletops by Susan and my coffee table book Best Dressed Tables.
It has been wonderful meeting so many of you and hopefully I have given you a few ideas when styling your own tabletops.
I was very excited to be featured in the much read Trellis Magazine in Toronto and to make the cover!
The other day I was just out of the pool at the Terminal City Club when another member said “I love your book and am gifting it to a friend this weekend and will be purchasing another one for you to sign for myself.” It never gets old to hear something like that.
For this Holiday Season, I decided not to move many items in my home to make way for Christmas but to add to them, saving having to store them and get them out again.
I added bulbs and glitter to entrance way planters which I normally put away. I lit up tall sprayed gold branches and added these into a tall planter with bamboo. Usually I take the bamboo out.
Recently, I had a luncheon for six and decided to use some lovely old placemats and also a runner that I have not used for years and hope you like the result.
You can make a simple tabletop like this with just a few wee trees and a flowering potted bloom and some red berries.
Also, it does not have to always be red white and green for a Holiday tabletop.
The other day a special friend gifted me with a stunning arrangement and that gave me a reason to style a tabletop using gentle soft colors like the mint green linen placemat and matching napkin with a glass napkin ring tying in with the glass charger.
For my Traditional heart shaped ornament mini Christmas tree which I put on a tabletop, I added some light pink coral branches here and there giving a bit more texture, and instead of a tree top, I just had a piece of the coral.
Another tradition in the Hyatt household is my sand dollar Christmas tree in the living room that goes back nearly forty years. This year I ordered a few more sand dollars as some of my original ones that my beautiful mother and dear aunt collected off the beaches of the island of Exuma in the Bahamas, were wearing thin. I made a starfish tree top with sand dollar in the middle this year.
Like all of us this year, we had to scale down our numbers and this year the Hyatt tabletop will be set for six and I wanted it to be almost Carnival style with bright red whites and greens and stripes everywhere.
I started by laying the white linen and red runner and down the center I places artificial as well as some fresh cut cedar from my garden down the center. The large red lantern I dressed up a bit with bows and love the red bells here and there amongst the greenery. I added a white battery operated candle in the lantern and white candles on the reindeer.
After adding the plates, cutlery and glassware I placed my homemade crackers on each place setting with names on place cards with wee red reindeers.
I went overboard with the stripes in the ribbon, the napkins and crakers but it seems to all work.
Again, a simple and affordable tabletop bringing the outside in like my featured article in the Toronto magazine “Trellis” (Link to Article).
Happy Holidays to Everyone and your Families for a Safe and Peaceful Christmas and Holiday Season.