Christmas table decorations

Choosing the right Christmas table decorations 

Christmas table decorations are easiest to choose in layers, starting from the middle of the table and working out. The centrepiece comes first, because everything else takes its cue from it. A garland run along the length of the table sets a line for the eye to follow, and the twig-like wire of a leaf garland can be bent to curve around candlesticks or dishes. A small tabletop tree in a woven basket does the same job on a round table, where a single point works better than a line.

Light comes next. Tapered candles in brass candlesticks give height without blocking the view across the table, while pillar candles and tealight holders fill the lower level. It is worth thinking about how the table will look at four o'clock and again at eight, because Christmas lunch is one of the few meals that runs long enough to need both.

The place setting finishes it. Embroidered linen napkins and rattan napkin rings add a festive detail to each seat, alongside your plates, glasses and cutlery from our Christmas tableware.

How our Christmas table decorations are made 

Christmas table decorations either earn their place in the making, or they do not. The lights on our pre-lit garlands are wrapped by hand through the foliage, so they sit among the branches rather than on top of them. On the leaf garland, each antique gold leaf is welded on by hand.

The candles come from Denmark. Our tapered dinner candles are made by a family-run business with 50 years of experience, and each one is dipped to keep the colour solid all the way through. Our advent candles are made in Denmark too, and are hand-dipped into their tapered shape.

Elsewhere, the materials do the work. Ceramic candle holders are hand-finished with a white glaze in Portugal, and the ceramic angels and houses have a glossy glaze that is gently weathered. The marble pieces are carved by hand from solid marble. The napkins are 100% linen, embroidered and kept in a matching linen pouch, so they go back into the drawer as neatly as they came out.

A Christmas table that outlasts the season

Most Christmas table decorations are bought to last one Christmas and replaced by the next. None of this is made that way. What differs here is not how long a piece lasts but how often it comes out, and it helps to know which is which.

Some of it is unmistakably for Christmas: garlands, a tree small enough for the table, pieces made for December. They come out once a year and go back in their box, which is rather the point. These are the ones you unpack each December and are glad to see again.

The rest is not seasonal at all. Brass candlesticks, ceramic holders, pillar candles and a marble bowl are gathered up for Christmas rather than made only for it, so the candlesticks that light Christmas lunch stay on the dining table through the winter.

What runs through both is material and form rather than motif: the weight of brass, the weathered glaze on a ceramic house, the soft drape of linen.