Christmas Eve Table

Welcome to our home for Christmas Eve dinner.  I know, it's the day after Christmas, but heck, things were too busy to post this on Christmas Eve!

Rather than cook a big meal on Christmas Day, we always make our big Christmas meal on Christmas Eve.  That way the cooks (usually me and my husband) can spend Christmas Day with the rest of the family, relaxing and enjoying our new "toys" and each other's company.  This year, we celebrated Christmas at home with just my husband, our son, our daughter, and me, we had no other family visiting with us this year. So it was a quiet Christmas Eve dinner in our dining room.  

We don't usually go very "formal" with our dinner, at least not in what we wear.  But I do like to have Christmas Eve dinner in the dining room using our pretty things on the table.

Our place setting is fairly simple, and if you saw our Thanksgiving table, you'll remember seeing some of these same pieces. 

The plates and bowls are from a set that I bought about 10 or 12 years ago from Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are not special, except that I think they're pretty and I bought them with some Christmas gift money that my parents gave me.  They came in service for 8, with a meat platter and vegetable bowl.  There is also a creamer and a sugar bowl.  

The napkins have a pretty beaded edge on one side.  I like to show off the beaded edge by doing a simple roll-up, and letting the beads show on the bottom edge.  These are my favorite napkins ever.  I think I found them at Kohl's about a hundred years ago.  The placemats are also from Kohl's, maybe a few years after I found the napkins.

The silverware is Oneida, but I don't recall the pattern name.  Someone out there will probably recognize it.  We received service for 8 as a wedding gift long ago, and since then we've added another service for 8, and then an extra set of 8 teaspoons, and yet I still can only find 6 or 8 teaspoons in the kitchen at any given time.  I have no idea what happens to them - somewhere they are hanging out with all the stray socks that disappear during laundry time.

The wine glasses came from Pier 1 about 3 or 4 years ago.  They have a soft golden color.  A year later, I found the water glasses at Target.  I like the gold ball on the stem, and I like that they sort of match the wine glasses but sort of don't.

For the centerpiece, I modified the centerpiece that I originally created to showcase our Santa smoker collection.  Basically I just made it shorter to fit the table without the leaves in it, and I elevated some of the Santas and turned them different directions so that all four place settings can see the front of at least one Santa.

I love these Santas - can't get enough of them!

We had a wonderful, quiet, simple dinner for four on our Christmas Eve.  I hope you enjoyed visiting with us here in our dining room!

Before you leave, would you please help me design my blog, by voting in my poll on the top of the right sidebar?  I'm trying to decide how best to organize my blog's home page, and in this post I describe the options I'm considering.  Thanks for taking a moment to help me out!

Merry Christmas!

Linking to the Tablescaper's Seasonal Sundays.

Linking to Between Naps on the Back Porch's Tablescape Thursday.