The dining room: how to
set the table for Christmas

Andrea and Alice can’t wait to spend their first Christmas in the new house they moved into this year, a lovely villa just outside the city center. Eager to welcome the family and show everyone the result of the renovation works done to transform the house to the size of their dreams, they decorated every room. Now the Christmas atmosphere is felt in the air, and the tinkling of bells hanging from the branches of the Christmas tree makes everything more magical. Andrea loves experimenting in the kitchen and has been thinking for days about how to organize the holiday menu, while Alice is the expert on how to set the table for Christmas. Since she was a little girl, her grandparents have passed on to her a passion for this type of detail: setting an elegant table at Christmas – and every day – is a gesture that evokes sweet memories of Sundays with the family, when there was always an embroidered tablecloth and dishes chosen with taste on the large walnut table in the living room.

To begin with, Alice chooses the protagonist of her Christmas table: a beautiful forest green linen tablecloth, purchased just for the holidays. The open decoration reveals the SuperMarble top of the dining table. “It really looks great!” she thinks to herself as she arranges the tablecloth to make it fall neatly off each side of the table.

To set the Christmas table, Alice pulls the white porcelain plate set and the family silverware out of the cupboard in the living room. She begins by arranging the placemats – a detail that should never be missing on the table for important occasions – with a plate lying on it and the soup plate. To the right of the plate she places the knife and spoon, while the forks go to the left. The glasses are on the top right, a tumbler for water and two glasses for the toasts to come. For the napkins, Alice decides to make a small departure from the rules of etiquette – that would like them to the left of the forks – and places them in the center of the plate, closed by a red ribbon with a small holly to which she adds a handwritten placeholder, just like her mom always does.

To complete her Christmas table, all she has to do is prepare the centerpiece. To make it happen, Alice and Andrea set aside glass jars and containers among travel memories and other occasions. “How beautiful our trip to Provence had been, and how beautiful these perfume bottles are!” says Alice. “Yeah, and it was a really good idea to keep them for the centerpiece” echoes Andrea. They arrange them along the table – alternating with candles, pine cones and other small decorations – with poinsettias and mistletoe branches inside. The result reflects the style of the hosts: elegant with spirit, and it is decidedly more modern than the traditional flower cushion that was used some time ago.

Now that the table is set for Christmas, only one last detail is missing: preparing the trolley on which to place the bottles of wine, the water jug, the bread basket and the cutlery that can be used during the long Christmas lunch. A simple and chic way to have everything at your fingertips and not have to interrupt the cheerful atmosphere of a family lunch.