Holiday

[TenderMercies]

How do you serve your holiday dinners?  For years I've been in awe of these beautiful tablescapes done by Valerie and Alberti, but I've always wondered about their practicality.  Unless you do a buffet or walk around placing each item on the guest's plate (a la Downton Abbey), then where is there room on these tables for the food?  Am I wrong to assume that most families do family style service in which the food sits on the table and is passed around? Are we to assume that these tablescapes are just decorative and are to be scaled down for the actual meal? I barely have room for a small swag and a couple of candle sticks for the meal.  

[Kitlynn]

I think it really depends on the size of your table as to how much you can decorate and still have room for the dishes on the table containing the food. I would just decorate on a smaller scale and it can still look beautiful. If you have leaves that can go in your table and the room to open it up then that helps also. You just have to do everything to the scale of the space you have.

[froggy]

Just  speaking for myself the tablescapes are for decoration only for time leading up to holiday dinner. If I wanted to eat at that table I would just remove the decor, even the centerpiece, and put it somewhere else.

[proudlyfromNJ]

If there are more than four people, we always serve buffet on the kitchen peninsula. Our dining room is small and our table is not wide. There is no room for food unless there is just one platter and one serving bowl. Our holidays have so much food that is just not possible to serve family style. I can leave some smaller styled decoration in the center of the table.

[gmkb]

@TenderMercies On 11/5 Regal Bee asked a similar question.  There were about 5 pages of responses.  You might want to look at that thread for some good ideas. The post was called Buffet style, tabletop or other.

[Snicks1]

Everyone does whatever works for them and their individual families. Personally I remove my table centerpiece when it comes time to put food on the table. Would love to not have to do that, but space in my house doesn't allow it.

[Lilysmom]

I always set up the food buffet style on a long kitchen counter so everyone can serve themselves.  Only dinner plates and side plates make the dinner table.  LM