Our Christmas Table

It's Christmas!

Just about every year we have a Christmas Home Tour that includes our home. I love being able to participate in them because it challenges me to find new ways of using the same treasures I have had for years along with the things I pick up here and there each time I leave the house every year. I love collecting Christmas things and I hope that someday they will find a nice home with our children and grandchildren and that they will be cherished by them too. I don't have a ton of things to hand down to them but I do have Christmas~ in a big way! Jim can attest to that as he hauls down box after box! I have no secrets from him!

One of the first things I started my collection with was our silverware and Christmas dishes. When I went to work after Laura got into school, they were the very first things I bought. We had been having Christmas for several years at our home and I really longed for a table that was uniform and pretty with matching glassware, etc. (In those days the mix and match we do now was not chic it was just plain old hodgepodge). Prior to purchasing our tableware, it meant always using stuff I would scrounge by running around borrowing from the older relatives. So with my first few paychecks I bought these dishes and the silverware. The red "Depression Glass" (an oxymoron because they make me so happy) ruby glasses are a collection that took many years and lots of thrift store~antique sales to find. I have always been in love with these!

It is such a pleasure to have enough
place settings for everyone.

I have our dining room table set with
them right now for the home tour.
I just love these dishes because they
hold memories of about
25 family Christmas dinners so far

This is my centerpiece that came from an estate sale
and tomorrow I am going to fill it with ornaments.
I really need to spend all my time now working on
the menu for next Sunday, etc but I'd rather
fool around with the centerpiece!
(Or be blogging!)

There, I found this whole box of ornaments
I hadn't put on the trees so they can go here!

That is a little more Christmasy and now I am ready!

The Finished Look
Can You Come to Dinner Next Sunday?

Jim and I love entertaining our extended family each year and creating an inviting place for them to relax and enjoy Christmas. What do you like to do around your Christmas table? There are about as many different beautiful possibilities as there are tables. Being creative about it is the fun part. And putting a bit of yourself into it! It doesn't have to be fancy, or elegant, or even matchy anymore~it just has to come from your creative gifts and your guests will leave with some beautiful warm feelings about visiting your home. Just think, everything you do becomes a part of someone's Christmas memories. Isn't that exciting?