Christmas is such a special time –  time to share with your nearest and dearest and most importantly to rest and relax. It’s also a good time get out the best china, polish your wine glasses and celebrate in style

Here are our five top tips to make your Christmas table a stunning centrepiece for entertaining your family and friends.  You don’t need to spend lots of money and these ideas don’t take a great deal of time to achieve  leaving you to enjoy the festive fun, sort the catering and have a lovely glass of something to celebrate the day. Tips by Sue from Greengarland.

1. Tie bundles of cinnamon sticks with short lengths of narrow ribbon to place on your side plates .  We like this lovely green but you can choose your ribbon to fit with the general theme of your table.  Sprinkle your plates with gold or silver stars to add a bit of festive drama.
2. Pop a little variegated Ivy or a sprig of Rosemary in your napkins rings.  Just make sure it’s completely dry before you do.  This adds a beautiful festive and fragrant edge to your table settings with little or no outlay.  If you don’t have napkin rings use narrow ribbon tied in a pretty bow.  Simple and stunning.
3. Use small luggage labels threaded with narrow ribbon as place settings.  Let the children write them for you to add an intimate feel to your celebration. .  You can buy them very cheaply at any good stationery shop.
4. Get the bunting out ! Decorate around the room with  beautiful handmade Christmas bunting.   Get some bias binding and old scraps of material  and get busy.  You can add little touches like applique reindeers and snowmen.  Let your imagination run wild.  This is a nice pre-Christmas craft activity to share with the children.  Get the Christmas music on, spread out on the kitchen table with the stapler and the scissors and have a bit of fun. 
5. Invest in a lovely fresh fragrant table swag to be the centrepiece of your Christmas table.  You can decorate yourself with pine cones and ribbons, oranges and tea lights to have a completely unique look to your table.  These swags, which can be found on the greengarland website (www.greengarland.co.uk, provide a great backbone to your table  decorations.  You can change the theme from Christmas into New Year by changing the colour of your candles, ribbons and pine cones as the season progresses.  We start with nice festive reds and orange and then cool it down for the New Year Eve Dinner Celebration with silver and white.

Using some of our ideas and your imagination you can create a beautiful and festive centrepiece for your season’s entertaining. Just let your imagination go wild. The important thing is fun, family and friendship so its good not to get too stressed about these things.  With a little planning in the run up and very little money you can make your celebrations stylish and fun.