A Christmas Dining Room

As soon as we got home from Ohio for Thanksgiving, I was ready to jump right into decorating for Christmas.  I started off by  cleaning the entire house.  Our oldest son was home for the week by himself so it hadn't been vacuumed at all.  He did keep the kitchen clean and ran the dishwasher, which is a big feat in and of itself.

After vacuuming the family room, even behind the sofa, I set to work putting up the 10' tree.  I managed to put it up by myself.  I didn't put lights on it, however.  I'm not very good at the lights so I graciously saved that for hubby.

Once the youngest son got home and saw me putting up the tree, he got all excited and took his oldest brother down to the basement and made him help carry up all the Christmas boxes.  He then took his little 10-year-old self upstairs with his tree and put it up by himself.  Lights, decorations, the whole works; so proud of him.  The 20-year-old still hasn't put up his tree but that is a different post for a different day.

Today we are talking about decorating my dining room.

Two summers ago a good friend of mine gave me a dining room set.  It came with a table which seats 6 (or more; it came with 3 leaves but my dining room isn't big enough for all that) a china cabinet and a sidebar.  I have just loved decorating it and setting it for Christmas.

I started out with a clean slate.

I have 2 leaves in my table and it's already a little cramped with the sidebar.  I can't even have the King and Queen chairs at the table.

I then ironed (yes, I did iron them even though they don't look like it) the tablecloth and runner.

I like to start with a charger.  I have black and gold.  For Christmas I like to use the gold ones.

Oh, so shiny!!

When we were in Ohio, I was in my mother's dining room and she had made mention of a box that she was taking to Goodwill.  I inquired a little further and found out that she was giving a box of Christmas dishes to Goodwill.  I gave her that "what in the world are you thinking woman" look for which she was like "I thought you had Christmas dishes" all innocent.

This is what I found in the box.

How cute are those???

To think she was going to give them away.  To some stranger that we don't even know.  It's a good thing I got there just in time and now they can stay in the family.

Their is only enough for 4 place settings but that's ok.  They look cute on the table for Christmas.

So, I set the table with the new plates, cups, saucers and juice glasses.

I had seen an idea somewhere of using wine bottles as candle holders.  I thought it was a great idea and wanted to mimic the idea for my dining room table.  I never know how to do a centerpiece and thought this would be a super easy fix.  I was able to collect 9 wine bottles while in Ohio.  I then went to Hobby Lobby and bought candles for 1/2 price.  Since the bottle opening is slightly smaller than the candles, I just used a paring knife to whittle the candle base down a little bit.

Hubby doesn't like the look but I think it looks neat.  And, like I said, it was easy.

I saw the idea of the stars and ribbons hanging from the chandelier in a Lowe's Christmas Ideas book.  I did this several years ago.  I tried lighting the candles to make them not look so "new" and almost caught one of the stars on fire.  Guess we won't be lighting the candles in the bottles this year.

I got this item at an estate sale about a month ago.  I knew right when I saw it that I wanted to decorate with it for Christmas.  I was going to put ornaments in it but when I saw the glitter fruit, I knew it was meant to be that.  I love how it ties in with the dining room table.  You know, fruit and wine; it just goes together. :)

So, here's one more look at the fab dishes I rescued from my mother.

I also decorated the sidebar.

Hubby's grandmother loved Cardinals and we had given her these pieces in past years.  His dad gave them back to us after she passed away.

My mom gave me the little tiny snowman tea set.

As if I didn't have enough going on in the dining room, I also added this table in a corner to put more stuff on.  You know you've got the decorating bug bad when you have to start adding tables for more decorations.

The manger scene I have had for years. I believe I got it when I was pregnant with my oldest son.  I have put it out every year since.  The lighthouse I got at the same estate sale as the cheese dish that I put the glitter fruit in.

So that's my dining room.  I really like how it turned out this year and next year I'm sure it will be totally different.  My taste and style is always changing.

I haven't completely finished the entire house yet, almost, but not quite.  I plan to do a Christmas House Tour once it's all finished so stay tuned.

I'm linking up to these fab parties.....