Christmas dining set yay or nay?

[Squeeless]

Just that really!

Thoughts?

I'm toying with the idea, any nice ones spotted? Would probably want silver as opposed to Santa etc. Just arguing with myself as it feels wasteful, but....

Another one with the Spode Christmas Tree set. I was given a small set (2 mugs, dishes, saucers and dinner plates) along with one serving dish. I've only had it 2 years but I absolutely love it. Am planning to add to it this year too.

What about a Xmas runner with napkins to match, say, silver and cream based, they’d go lovely with just white crockery.

Maybe get something in red or gold that would do for other special occasions.

You can find good deals on eBay!

I bought beautiful antique French linen napkins and stencilled ‘Noel’ on them. I only use them at Christmas.

Use dinner service and cutlery from our wedding presents, decorate the table. I do have a christmas tablecloth but it is so tired now so I bought a pretty runner instead. I do like a candle in a christmassy wreath or log for the centre piece.

I have a nice set used for special dinners (dinner parties etc) and Christmas/New Years Day dinners. It has a gravy boat 😄

I've collected quite a few pieces from Emma Bridgewater's Christmas Town set - platters, jugs, cake plates, mugs and serving bowls.
It's beautiful and I love getting them out during December.
I only found out about it the year after it was sold by EB, so I've had to scour eBay and other online sellers

I saw in Wilkos a nice white set with a gold confetti design that can be used for special occasions.

After struggling to find a suitable tablecloth, I caved when I saw the heavily reduced spode and have ordered 4x small plates, dinner plates, mugs and bowls. Eek!

I have everyday white plates (oval steak plates and round dinner plates)
I add my random Christmas plates - Holly&Ivy, Christmas Tree, Victorian Street, Robins.
All picked up when I see things I like.

I used to have a BHS Country Vine set but the plates were fairly small . I put the whole set (I did think about keeping the serving platter and bowl) in the charity shop so hopefully someone bought it last year and enjoys it.

(And I have Christmas towels and buy The Snowman or M&S Christmas loo roll )

We either have the “good wedding china” which is white with blue trim, or the nice but everyday plain white China.

I tend to use the silver cutlery (wedding present) and a special set of glasses (another present) though.

And I have a couple of pieces of serving dishes, cream jug and some more snack food dishes that are Christmas themed - I can use those with the plain white China and it looks lovely without having a whole extra set that only gets used for 1 big dinner a year.

I've been collecting Spode for 20 years too. TKMaxx and eBay mostly and we use it for all of December and early January. I bought an entire Spode dinner service for £30 from eBay and have added many, many things since then. I've also embroidered napkins and table settings over the years. Getting it all out on December 1st is an utter joy.

I also have tea towels, jugs, mugs, cruet set etc in various designs I've seen and liked.

Actually, I also have about 6-8 Christmas mugs (only 3 relate to each other, the others are all non-matching designs), and a few Christmas tea towels/hand towels picked up over the years. These come out on 1st December until the decorations get boxed up again.

And I forgot that I bought 3 round red sequinned placemats and 4 rectangular gold placemats a few years back, which means I can set the table nicely and festively using the regular crockery. (I also bought fabric to make a runner, um, at least 8 years ago, and have yet to get the time to sew it together ).

We use our everyday white stuff, but I have a load of mismatched Christmassy serving dishes, mugs and things that come out at the start of the month.

I'd love a set, but have nowhere to store it.

I’ve been getting the children to make something each year at one of those craft pottery places, so we have a very mismatched but quite charming set that comes out and gets added to each Christmas.

I have a set, it resides in the loft with the Christmas decorations and I don’t recall using it since we moved to this house over 5 years ago.

The box is heavy; it’s a faff unwrapping it all/washing it all then having to pack it all away carefully after Christmas not to mention having piles of it taking up room and because it has a metallic pattern that it can’t go in the microwave.

If you have a kitchen cupboard or sideboard that makes it more accessible ,it’s microwaveable and you have spare cash, fair enough, otherwise Ikea 365 with nice napkins and charger plates/placemats all the way!

We have a special occasions dinner set, all bought very cheaply from second hand places (managed to find 8 of everything, plus a few extras of some things in case of breakage, usually from old sets of 12 with bits missing), it's not a waste at all as it has been used many times over the years.

I have a collection of PortMerion dishes too. I also have a Christmas runner and napkins and these do a nice job if you don't want to get a whole set of crockery.

It's nice for the table to look super special. You could purchase such a set and use it so as to create a family tradition, but it is likely to get costly do get a decent set.
I would use plain crockery/china perhaps with a gold rim, or a special touch - but not one that shrieked Christmas so that it could be used for other occasions.
Choose a lovely, heavy quality table cloth, perhaps a deep maroon linen, and use some fabulous candlesticks, napkins and accessories.
Save your money, and also cupboard space as it would be one extra thing to store.

I have a set that was very cheap, about 25 euro, with white and silver plates that we use at Christmas. It is rather nice to have something different, even if not expensive. We also have various Christmas plates and dishes, so the normal bowl with fruit is replaced by a Christmas plate with chocolates and nuts. I also have a lovely set of Denby which used to be used at Christmas before DS was born. He is now 13 and it will be used again once he is about 40 and out of the clumsy stage

We also have very cheap but nice looking gold ‘plates’ that go under our plates. I don’t think it is that wasteful if you really like it and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

I have cloth napkins (plain red) and both a plain red and red/white Christmas tablecloth but I'm fine with standard plates- though I did buy nice Denby ones through Tesco clubcard, but I cannot see the point of saving things like plates for best, with denby they keep designs for years so easy to replace breakages, might treat myself to a large plate for meat this year, plain though in case needed at other times of year!