Christmas dining room table decor

Searching Christmas dining room table decor?  We have several ideas to share for Christmas dining room table décor. 

This post is packed with holiday dining room decorating ideas, ideas for Christmas dining table decor, and how to make holiday napkin rings for your table.  

Sit back, grab a hot cup of hot cocoa, enjoy yourself and be emerged into our holiday decoration inspiration.  

 

Growing up, my mother loved getting out her fancy dishes, having the perfect centerpiece for her table, cut glassware, and decorative serving dishes for each item on the menu during the holidays.  

Everything always coordinated together, tablecloth, napkins, dishes, all matching in the blue and white color scheme she chose for her kitchen.  There were those times red and green were sprinkled in with her decorations, but it really just depended on her mood when she began her decorating frenzy each year.  

When it came to decorating for the holidays, Martha Stewart and my mother had a lot in common.  She would remove all of the pictures and decorative pieces that graced her dining room walls.  All were replaced with Christmas decor, sometimes she even made a tree from garland to hang on the wall adorned with small ornaments.  I recall getting so excited to see what she would come up with each year.  

I can assure you some of her holiday must have's did not trickle down to me.  I am way more laid back... I use the same serving bowls I use on a daily basis, there is no fancy china, but I do admit I share a love with her on a decorated table.  Now, that I can get behind and create year after year.  

Are you planning your Christmas dinner table place settings now or are you a planner and have it all mapped out in your head, did a trial run and know exactly how it will look?  OR are you searching out ideas now and thinking maybe you will figure it out the day of?  

Well.... if you need a last minute decorating idea that is so easy you may just laugh, then I have your back my friend.  I am just betting no one will guess how we made these napkin rings either for our Christmas dinner table.

As I was getting ready to throw a toilet paper roll away, I stopped when I opened the trash bin and thought what exactly can I use this for?  It is such a shame to throw these away once they have served their purpose.  Yep, always thinking of the next project even as I begin to throw away trash.  

What do we have here?  How about last minute napkin rings for your dining room table?   I know every home has a toilet paper roll or three, and I am guessing many of you have garland.  

Honestly, I wish I could recall where I purchased my garland.  It is the longest garland I have ever seen, I cannot even tell you how many feet is in one strand.  When you find something like that, grab it up!  There are so many things you can do with it, and not only around Christmas time either.  Most of what I have seen lately is about six feet, blah!  We need 30 feet for our Christmas garland so we can deck the halls to the max.  

I took the toilet paper roll outside, and of course it was the windiest fall day when I worked on this project, so I put it down inside of a box and began spray painting it black.  Then I cut it in about one inch sections, there was no measuring of course on my end, but you sure can if you choose.  I just wanted to make sure it was not too wide since I wanted the garland to completely cover the cardboard.  

I used the cardboard roll as a guide so I knew how long to cut each piece of garland.  Again, no measuring, I just rolled it around the cardboard toilet paper roll and cut where it met the other side.  

  

I began with a bead of hot glue and applied it to the toilet paper roll, then I carefully pushed the garland into the glue.  

Next I began applying a bead of hot glue all the way around the toilet paper roll, and continued to push the garland into the glue.  

Viola, you have garland napkin rings you can decorate your table with for the holidays.  I really do love those simple and might I add free DIY projects.  

I made six of these for our dining room table.  How easy is this DIY?  I know, right?

Now, you can leave it as is, or you can choose to beef it up a bit which is what I decided to do.  Remember, I tend to be extra when it comes to Christmas... or maybe that is just my personality.  I really enjoy seeing what I can create with next to no money.  

I added these gold holly leaf napkin rings that I have had for probably 20 years!  Yes, I keep everything.  You just never know when you will need that certain something again.  

We had the charger plates on hand, they were actually at each place setting at our wedding so I have many of them.  We had an intimate wedding, with under 50 guests.  Neither one of us wanted a huge elaborate wedding, just a few friends and family... simple like us.    

The charger plates were all silver, so I spray painted these with a flat black spray paint.  I like the way they turned out, you could even add a bit of rub n buff to the decorative ring around the plate if you chose.  Charger plates are not food safe so my painting them had no baring on being able to use them for food or not.

The "placemat" is actually an ornament wall hanging from Dollar Tree I picked up several years ago.  They were selling them as wall hangings, and I saw placemats.  Do you know I picked them up after the holidays at 50 cents a piece?  Crazy, huh?  

I picked up the plaid plates online using my "points" so they were free too!  I loved the way the plaid set the mood for our table.  I get all nostalgic when I see plaid at Christmastime.  

As an afterthought, I added a sprig of boxwood that had fallen off a bush I had and thought it looked kind of cute.  Again, I used everything I already had.  The napkins were even a purchase from many years ago.  If you look closely, you will see I have 2 napkins that have a bit extra on them.  

It is sometimes funny how I come across the items I do.  I recall picking those up somewhere on clearance after the holidays, but they only had two napkins.  I do not remember if I found the rest of the napkins the same year, or later, but they match exactly with the same damask pattern, only two of them have the garland and ribbon detail on them.  I put those at the head of the table on either end as a statement.

And since we are in the dining room, let's share the rest of our Christmas dining room for the holidays.  The red and white glass finials were gifted to me by a coworker, and if you recall, they were in our bedroom last year.  I thought they looked adorable on the table.   

You can barely see them, but I picked up two red tartan plaid pillows for our bench that my husband made when we were in high school.  They are just peeking out over the table.  

The big belly glass vase was a barn find.  You just never know where I will pick things up from.  It came from my favorite place to visit, Hope Timber where I tend to find all sorts of goodies for our home.   

I added red and gold bulbs to the vase in the bottom, and then a silver tinsel garland with large white flocked branches.  I love flocked trees, and branches, and sprays.  I have to say, the branches are enough to clean up after so I am doubtful I ever have a flocked tree, but I think they are breathtaking!  

I added a few sprays of pine to the table and thought oh... now it feels like Christmas around here.  

I tend to pull out the same runner for our table year after year, I love a plaid touch striped down the middle of our table.  It also matches our curtains in our dining room.  

There is our tartan plaid Santa, and our vintage snowmen.  I do love those items.  I also added flocked pine sprays to our buffet and a gold runner to boot.  All of these items came from our attic since we already had them.  

Aren't the snowmen the cutest ever?  I pick up anything that has those adorable vintage faces.  It just makes me smile, and think of the 1950's which I am beginning to think has become a favorite era for me.  

Do you see I kept our WWII artillery basket on the wall and changed out the peonies to poinsettias? I fussed and fussed with this arrangement... I added pine, and boxwood, and pinecones, and eucalyptus to my winter arrangement.  In the end, I loved how it turned out.  

The pinecones came from my mother's yard, and then I picked up 3 bushes of boxwood from Walmart, but the rest came from my own personal field of dreams, or the attic if you want to be technical. 

I kept our buffet lamps, but added flocked pine to each one.  Then my anniversary gift from my husband from a few years ago stayed as well.  I love it sitting there, I find it so enchanting.  I considered replacing the clock with something Christmasy, but in the end decided to keep my clock on the wall. 

  

As you can see, our vintage birdie wall pocket came back out again this year.  I just could not say no... those vintage vibes were calling to me and that darn bird is so cute.    

Wow, I just noticed that my wall looks a bit crooked, lol.  I brought out our snow scene that lights up at night, and found all sorts of greenery in the attic I thought looked cute on this table.  Those hurricanes light up at night and it looks like shooting stars dancing all about.  I love them!  I think they may move out to the living room after Christmas, but I am not sure yet.  
  

I had a lot of fun with the china cabinet.  I brought out my husband's large vintage string light bulbs.  Do you know I have wanted a set of these for years?  I have always looked at them longingly when I would see them in other's photos, and when we were clearing out his childhood home, we found many strings of them.  I knew they had to be in the dining room this year.  

I added more silver garland from the attic, one of my vintage Skotch coolers and a floral arrangement, a Santa bag filled with floral goodies, and a Merry Christmas sign I stained that peeks out over the top of the garland and lights.  

I keep picking up those vintage Skotch coolers when I see them at online auctions.  They are one of my favorite finds.  After Christmas I will share another one that looks very different than the others I have.  Not my color scheme at all, but I fell in love with it.    

I really enjoyed putting together several winter floral arrangements this year too.  I find I enjoy sitting down with a pile of nothing and see how I can make it all come to life, something I find beauty in.  

Are you all decked out and ready for Santa to come down your chimney?  We are here, the presents are all wrapped and under the tree, the cookies are made and ready for the holidays at my mother's house, and Bentley has been trying to be extra good.  We keep telling him Santa will not come if he is not good.  I swear he understands us... because he will stop barking like a banshee at people when we tell him.  Unfortunately, we did not make it out to see Santa in person, but we point him out when he comes on TV.  Now you say Santa Claus, and he turns to search him out on the television.  Our kiddo, the pup who makes our heart full.  

Don't forget to pin to Pinterest for later.