"How to spend it well at xmas"

[Duemarch2021]

Just watching this now on TV and some people spend almost £700 on their table decorations!?!?!!!! How much do you spend on decorating your table at xmas inclusing crackers, centerpiece, glasses cutlery etc etc???

My parents table setting one christmas was well over £1k but they bought a brand new table service from Villeroy & Bosch and cutlery.

I once spent £500 odd on a table for christmas but there was 18 of us in my new house and i needed 3 new dinner sets and serving dishes etc. Not every year though... i have spent nadda this year

For us Christmas is about the kids. Once they are older I’ll pay a bit more attention to detail but for the meantime it’s all kid friendly. We brought crackers from mums work last year when they were heavily reduced To £2.50 but I brought Extras for 4.99. Napkins were £2.00 and table cloth £3.00. That’s the extent of our table decorations. So less than £15.

The whole programme was bonkers. £639 for a table setting for two? Yeah, right. You enjoy your cosy, expensive twosome, Phil.

I only watched it for Grace Dent.

But I also then had the joy of the ?Sims sisters from TOWIE guessing wrongly premium booze brands which was quite fun.

Crackers (always bought for very little in the garden centre after Christmas and put away with the Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night) - £6 ) last year.
Slim candles for the German wooden rotating centrepiece thing I bought my mum thirty years ago which is a fixtire of the festive season - £4.
Christmas napkins - again bought in garden centre sale - £2 last year.

@LishaFlynn

Were those candles the light up ones from.sainsburys? If so.. i also bought them at about £7 per candle.. they werw gorgeous but lasted about an.hour :(

Don’t do table things we have tiny tables in front of us,

I don't even have a table! First year having Christmas at home small 2 bed no room for a table however DS has a small table and as he gets older he'll get a tray for his lap like we do🙈🤣

I'm too messy for a lap tray. It never ends well when gravy is involved.

Slightly off subject, but those Towie sisters!!!!

It worries me that some girls think this is attractive. They looked like characters in the simpsons, or drag queens.

Really bizarre!

Hi, did anyone catch where last nights show centre piece was from? Maybe l missed it but l think it was the only item on the table they never listed where to purchase it. I quite liked it but have no idea. Anyone know?

Nothing. I've never understood table decorations at Christmas Dinner, there's no room on the table for anything except food!

I'll get the good china out but it's not just for Christmas.

We might have crackers at tea time but that would only be because someone brought them (so not this year)

I saw some trays like the ones used as centerpieces in tkmaxx Fuzzy

I don’t spend a thing. I have a lovely holly and Ivy tablecloth from H&M and woodland print placemats from M&S and that’s it. There’s no point in centrepieces, as much as I’d like them, because I have young children and they’d only get knocked over in the scrabble for food and drink. I have some Christmas glasses I crack out every year too.

We have a tiny Formica table that cost me £20 off eBay, four cheap chairs and one stool and second hand plates from charity shops.

My parents had a rosewood table that could seat 16, embroidered Christmas linen, matching rosewood chairs x 16 and silver candelabras.

What they didn't have was happiness and every Xmas I spent as a child was miserable and anxiety making. A 'good' Christmas was not getting sent to my room for extended periods because I was bad, getting hit or being woken up in the middle of the night because they were indulging in another domestically violent dispute.

When I sit for dinner at my cheap, too small table with my husband and 3 kids and we chat about our day while they enjoy the meal I've made, it makes me feel like the richest woman in the world

I’ve bought a nee tablecloth/napkins/runner/napkin rings this year so around £75 on those in total. Hopefully they’ll last a while.
I use a candelabra we already own for the centre piece, and also our existing plain white plates/serving bowls etc. We only own one set, so don’t have a set for ‘best’.
I’ve spent £7 on some crackers.
Don’t get me wrong though I’d bloody love to be able to spend £700 on beautiful table decorations

I’ve bought some crackers, napkins and 2 church candles - £15 or so?

We have a couple of ivy garland things down the middle of the table and 2 large candle sticks which I bought years ago.

Don’t use a table cloth, the table mats are the same slate jobbies we use all year

Plates and cutlery - the same ones we use all the time

I did buy some new champagne flutes - 6 x 50p each in Asda.

My tablecloth, placemats, crockery cutlery, about half my glasses and even my candelabra are all family hand me downs (nothing fancy) so literally all I have bought is crackers which I got in the January sales, and some Christmas paper napkins. I must have spent about £5

@MrsBobDylan
I am glad you're in a better place now. That's quite heartwarming

Nothing.
I have a white tablecloth, christmas runner and neutral placemats that we use all year. We have a nice set of crockery but we use that every year, all year for nice meals.

mrsbyers
I know people who change their christmas theme each year or every other year. This year the trend seems to be for grey and white garlands down staircases, bows for the door and other arrangements for the door, large dining table arrangements, and these have all been documented on social media by the first week in December. Why anyone needs their dining room dressed for Christmas on December 1st is beyond me.

I have an heirloom white Irish linen tablecloth and special occasion plain white Belleek china accumulated over a few years. I bought an inexpensive Christmas table runner and matching napkins about 15 years ago and these are dragged out every year, every day glasses and cutlery. If I had to replace it all it would probably be several hundred but I haven't spent anything extra in years.

Don't normally buy crackers but my mother is doing a clear-out and gave me some of her left overs.

Table is filled with plates, condiments, gravy jug, crackers etc - no room for a fancy centrepiece but I'll probably buy a bunch of carnations or roses and have a little bud vase or two. So a fiver should do it this year.

About £5 on crackers. We did buy a table cloth a few years ago for about £15 which is washable. We don’t bother with anything else. Haven’t got the room to store it all year! Sometimes I buy some Christmas cups and plates for the kids 😅

[quote Duemarch2021]@LishaFlynn

Were those candles the light up ones from.sainsburys? If so.. i also bought them at about £7 per candle.. they werw gorgeous but lasted about an.hour :([/quote]
Yes I think they were! Can't believe I burned £30. Oh well live and learn.

👀 I decorate the table with the food I made.

Like people actually properly decorate tables fir Christmas?

I've just bought a second hand table cloth for £20, but will be used during the year too probably as it doesn't shout Christmas. I will spend about £8 on crackers, maybe more or less. The rest is our usual crockery, fabric napkins, wine glasses and the cutlery we were given by dhs grandma.
I also do small vases with holly and small white flower buds in, so £5? My ed bought me some pretty different coloured candles from Cornwall, so they'll be on the table too.

Thank you @FazeleysRoyale I have been very lucky in my adult life. My childhood definitely helped me understand what makes people happy and to try and achieve that for for myself and my children.