Christmas Dining Room: When No Guests Are Expected

Normally when I share my Christmas dining room here on the blog, the table is festively set as though guests are expected to walk in the door at any minute. Today, I’m showing what it looks like now when it’s just hubby and me at home. A little bit of green and sparkles, but nothing over the top. (This post contains affiliate links – see my privacy policy.)

I do like to keep the dining room subtly festive this month to keep myself in a Christmas spirit. But for some reason, when the Christmas trimmings come out, the kitties think I’ve created an ultimate playground for them to enjoy and decorations are found in strange places each morning.

This year, I kept the same tasseled runner on the table that was there through the fall season. I swapped out the cement bunnies for a collection of bottle brush and wooden trees. The chandelier gets the expected strand of garland that I wrap around the base. It takes just a few seconds to do this.

 

The cats have already knocked the smallest bottle brush tree on the floor a few times already. They do it in the middle of the night when I can’t see who did it, so no one gets in trouble. My Christmas tree is in the background creating a special glow. It looks lovely at night when the lights are reflected off the window behind it.

 

Here’s a view from the other side of the Christmas tree centerpiece.

 

In years past I’ve set up an entire Christmas village on the console table. This year, in my quest to scale back, I simply put a wreath at the base of my snake plant, added my new, vintage amber pickling jar, and finished the far end with a few bottle brush trees. Bottle brush trees are a lifesaver when making holiday decorating as easy as possible. They’re not expensive, and they look good no matter where you put them.

 

The vintage mirror reflects the lights of the tree on the other side of the room, while my vintage amber pickling jar is filled with golden Christmas ornaments. The photo doesn’t do the jar justice, and that decorating touch was a bit of an accident. While decorating my tree, I put some of the gold ornaments in the jar to keep them from rolling off the table before hanging them. I liked the way it looked and left them in the jar.

 

I kept the same, simplistic decorating philosophy when I turned my eye toward the dining buffet. It also has a snake plant with a wreath at the bottom of the pot, along with two other simple vignettes.

 

I had a stack of small, white ironstone oval plates in front of my vintage mirrors and love the look of their simplicity. So all I did to give it holiday cheer was to add a pair of light-up ceramic houses and a bit of greenery. Done! Well, the light in the smaller house isn’t working so hubby needs to see if he can remedy that.

 

My mini ornaments are cradled in a heart-shaped wooden bowl to finish off the buffet. It took me less than 5 minutes to decorate this area. In fact, it took more time digging the stuff out of the attic! But honestly, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I just hauled out boxes with stuff I thought I might use and put the rest back (which was a lot).

 

On Saturday I’ll share my sitting room, which looks into the dining room. It’s what I’m featuring for my “cozy living” series that’s held the first Saturday of each month with some blogging friends.

 

I hope you enjoyed my quick and easy approach to my Christmas dining room when it’s just hubby and me at home. If guests are coming for dinner, the table is set with a holiday theme. I’ll soon share my Christmas tablescape because I’m excited about some new, inexpensive soup/salad bowls I found! It’s the simple things in life that make us smile, right?

 

See More Christmas Dining Room Ideas:

Christmas in a Farmhouse Kitchen

Creative Christmas Dining Ideas

Farmhouse Christmas Dining (this is an old post!)

Christmas Floral Chandelier in a Breakfast Nook

Eleven Christmas Table Setting Ideas