Tabletop and Decor Ideas for the Holidays

Since Thanksgiving is over and the holiday season has now officially begun, today we offer 7 ideas for tabletop and holiday decor for your gatherings this season.

Most of these ideas take minimal time and effort:

• If your home and decor are more traditional, decorate large mirrors and paintings with garlands and bendable organza ribbon, intertwined among the garlands.  Add metal or glass bead strings if you want to go all out.
• If you have a mantel or sideboard, whether your decor is traditional or more modern, you can decorate these with greenery garlands and fresh or faux fruit, even gold fruit, perhaps mixed with Christmas balls
• Speaking of organza ribbon, if you're pressed for time you can buy beautiful ready-made organza bows and combine with organza ribbon to decorate doorways, staircases, chair backs, tied around vases or candlesticks or topiaries, or added to Christmas trees.  A word of caution: after you've decorated with organza bows and/or ribbon, count how many of these you've put out.  If too many, subtract a few or it will look overdone.
• A modern home decor looks nice with a variety of white pillar candles, gold and/or silver Christmas balls, and gold and/or silver curling ribbon woven among the candles and Christmas balls as a centerpiece of a dinner or buffet table or on accent tables or even to decorate a bar area
• Another idea for a very modern home decor is to put gold and/or silver Christmas balls in a large glass bowl; or put the balls on a very sleek silver or chrome or gold tray lined with greenery.  The latter looks especially nice if you extend or fan the greenery out a bit from the edges of the tray.
• An easy way to decorate your seated dinner place settings is to lay Christmas crackers on them--these are so fun and cool and SO EASY--just buy them and lay them across the dinner plates. They come in decorative colors to suit many decors.  And the merriest in your group will want to wear the paper crowns inside the crackers at your gathering!
• Keep the proportions of your home in mind--a large home with high ceilings looks weird with small decorations, and vice versa.  After you decorate, ask a friend to walk in the front door and give you an honest opinion, then fix whatever.

Enjoy!

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

4 Cool Ideas to Add Flair to Your Thanksgiving Meal

If you're looking for ideas to add flair to your Thanksgiving (or any festive fall) meal this year, read on.

You can still keep the tradtional feel that many people like in Thanksgiving dinner and add an interesting touch or two just to spice things up.  Here are four ideas to do this:

• Use real small pumpkins with decorative real or paper leaves attached to the stems as place/name cards, or lay the leaves across the plates if you're doing a sit-down dinner.  Or, edgier: use quinces, a relative of the apple that comes in shades ranging from pale to deep yellow (legend has it that the quince was the apple in the Garden of Eden). Or alternate pumpkins and quinces.
• Add touches of gold, bronze, or deep, not pastel, peach to the decor with serving pieces, a runner, or decorations.  These touches add warmth and a fall-like feel with a more contemporary slant.
• Set out or serve a trio (or at least a duo) of pumpkin desserts rather than a pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin mousse, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bars, chocolate-pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll..And you can include a pumpkin pie as part of this too if you want to please the traditionalists.  Why not?
• Try some wine pairings--If you've not done this before at a Thanksgiving meal, please do try it.  Ask your wine store for recommendations for your menu, and also serve non-alcoholic options with the meal.  You'll be surprised how much more festive and relaxed your meal becomes!
•  Set out a tray of orange and yellow sorbets or gelatos in small glasses or goblets.  Even if you serve baked desserts, people love anything in the ice cream family even in winter! If you like, decorate the tray with small pumpkins or gourds.

Enjoy!

Kristina

(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com