Christmas Tablescaping with Waterford Crystal

It’s taken me quite some time to amass my collection of glasses, serving dishes and tableware. At last year’s Christmas dinner my sister had only just moved into her new abode so was lacking in the dish department. I offered to lend her some of my own cutlery and crockery and then half way up the M1 remembered I’d left them neatly piled on the worktop. The moral of the story, always plan ahead when it comes to Christmas Dinner.

There are umpteen guides on the internet to help you with the food preparations, and you were super duper helpful last year with all your tips for hosting dinner for the five thousand so this year we’ve teamed up with Live. Love. Toast a gorgeous new lifestyle site from Waterford crystal to share a few ideas for your Christmas table.

Glassware

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been known to break open the bubbles on Christmas morning. This is obviously only acceptable on birthdays and christmases, it’s not ideal on a Monday morning before heading to work.
More recently I’ve fallen in love with the oh so glamorous champagne coupe glasses for my prosecco. I’ll be propping mine on a high shelf while the family puppy and all the brood tear open their presents.

Thanks to styling a lot of weddings I have a huge cabinet full of glassware so I load up the table with another champagne flute (the taller ones seem easier to manage on a table as they take up less room), plus a wine glass and a tumbler too. If you’re really posh you could go for separate glasses for white and red wine but lets be honest space is at a bit of a premium when it comes to Christmas Dinner. For this look we chose three elegant stunners from the Waterford collection; the Elegance Champagne Flute, Stemless Wine Glasses (to use as tumblers) and Shiraz Glasses. Unsure how much vino you’ll need for your shindig? Then pin our handy guide included in the post to your Pinterest board to give you a helping hand.

Cutlery

You keep the cutlery in my house – I can just about muster up one set for each person. Thanks to a very generous John Lewis wedding voucher I have collected eight place settings of their vintage style cutlery and recently added in serving spoons too.
Florist Ruby and The Wolf created us these gorgeous rosemary rings which are simply made by securing two ends of the herb with florist wire and adding a thin ribbon bow. Perfect for a napkin or cutlery.

Plates

You need plates and you can’t really get away from that. My top tip is to warm them first. With the meat, the sides and all the trimmings serving can take quite some time so it’s notoriously tricky to keep the meal piping hot. A friend of mine plunges hers into boiling water while I’ve always favoured a whirl in the microwave with a cup of water perched on top.

Servingware

Once I’ve got my menu sorted I make a quick list of the dishes I’ll need to serve from. As a minimum I’d say you need some form of platter to serve the centrepiece, a couple of jugs for the gravy and any other sauces, a few large serving bowls for your veg and you can never have enough serving spoons. The ones are our table are all from Jasper Conran Tisbury range.

Decor

It’s no secret tablescaping is my favourite element of the Christmas dinner. In lieu of crackers, Lottie created these gorgeous jars of treats based on the tutorial we featured last year for DIY animal jars. Load up with chillies, chocolates or a sweet treat for an adorable festive favour.
Candles are always a must for a the festive season and the Waterford Clear Candlesticks are so elegant. With copper being the rage we loved combining with the copper metallic candles from Cox and Cox.
I’m a big fan of a place name too and always like to sit my little helpers nearer to the kitchen to lend a hand. These beautiful name cards were created by Paperknots and are great option if you choose to create a seating plan.

Hands up if you’re hosting this year? How many are you feeding? How’s your menu coming along and are you having to splash out on extra dishes and glasses?

This post has been produced in collaboration with Waterford Crystal. For more Christmas inspiration from Live. Love. Toast. this festive season, explore the new site.

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