Christmas Centerpiece Ideas

These vintage Christmas centerpiece ideas can help to make your holiday dessert table appear irresistible. Attractive Christmas table decorations in the seasonal colors will delight your guests and make your homemade desserts and appetizers even more appealing.

And, the good news is you don't have to go to unnecessary expense. Beautiful homemade decorations can be easily made using items readily obtainable. Use the centerpiece pictures below as a springboard for your creativity to celebrate an old fashioned, happy Christmas.

Vintage Christmas Centerpiece Ideas

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

There's something very charming and appealing about a Christmas table decoration arranged in keeping with the country. Maybe you would try something simple like the centerpiece ideas illustrated above that are quite easy to make yet look very Christmassy.

Left: A snowman ornament can be a delightful decoration on a small table. He's ready to shovel up a barrelful of almonds for your guests. You can also place him on a side table or a coffee table where your guests will be sure to find him.

Center: A bright red ribbon ties three large candy canes together to form a tripod which supports a candy basket over a bed of green holly. Quality chocolates, mints, or roasted cashew nuts might be served in the basket. This makes a wonderful centerpiece for a dessert table.

Right: The dessert itself can be used as a perfect table decoration. For example, this attractive holly cake can be decorated with either candied angelica or piped icing for the leaves, and has tiny red candies for the berries.

The group of tiny sledders in the homemade Christmas centerpiece above adds to the old time fun of this round Christmas party table. Create your own three-dimensional holiday diorama using simple materials and suitable figurines. A miniature Christmas village would also make a good diorama and capture your guests' interest. Each guest's "gift" place card might contain a small keepsake or a special hand-dipped chocolate.

An inexpensive holly ribbon, some narrow red ribbon, and a few red pipe cleaners can be used to good effect for the artificial candle shades and place-card baskets. Tiny holly wreaths decorate the stemware, and small red candles provide the intimate lighting for an old fashioned Christmas table setting. All the materials for this Christmas candle centerpiece can be obtained from local dollar stores and online craft stores.

Cheap Christmas Centerpiece Ideas

• Have a small flowerpot or similar container filled with sand or pebbles to "weight" it down, and in this put a branch of evergreen set upright like a little tree. Pine is especially good for such an arrangement. Since you will, no doubt, want the Christmas colors, red and green, cover the flowerpot with plain red wrapping paper and let the little green tree be your centerpiece.
  
  
• Sprigs of the same green pine can be laid here and there on the tablecloth, and if the dinner is to last on to twilight or to be served in the evening, a pleasing addition to this decoration is to hollow out bright red apples to make holders for green (or white) candles of a suitable size.
  
  
• These candles may be set at intervals along a long table, or if the table is to seat from six to ten, a good arrangement is to have four candles set like points of a square about the center decoration. This makes a beautiful candlelight Christmas centerpiece with a Victorian look.
  
  
• Another attractive Christmas centerpiece can be made from winter berries or bittersweet in a vase or bowl, or better still in a little basket set on a mat of cedar or pine. Sprigs of the same evergreen can be mixed with the winter berries, especially where a little basket is used.
  
  
• Also, the foods themselves can offer good centerpiece ideas for Christmas. Use them to add to the color of the meal table — the golden brown turkey, the red of the cranberries, the orange of the squash or turnip. Beware of colorless foods if you want an attractive holiday table.
  
  

These Christmas centerpiece ideas will add ambience and appeal to your holiday dessert table and help to celebrate an old fashioned Christmas.

The homemade centerpieces would also be perfect for a New Year's table, and they could be adapted to make a unique table centerpiece for a winter wedding, or an anniversary party. Simply add some creative imagination to the above examples, and you're sure to come up with novel seasonal decorating ideas.

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