It’s the Sparkle : Holiday Tables Can Skip Red and Green and Still Evoke the Spirit of Christmas

OK, so Bing never dreamed of a mauve Christmas.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use mauve, and many other colors not associated with the yuletide, to decorate the holiday table.

Setting a festive table, according to Orange County decorators, requires imagination--visions of sugar plums, fine china, matching silverware and a smashing centerpiece. They encourage hosts to use color and table ornaments in new ways.

“It’s hard to get out of the red and green mode,” says Lynn Smith, part-owner of Table Talk in El Toro, which sells china, crystal, candles and other knickknacks for the table.

Yet Smith says even tables set in shades of rose or blue can evoke feelings of a winter wonderland if one adds some holiday glitter, such as gold and silver ornaments or bunches of miniature packages wrapped in shiny foil.

“It’s the sparkle that makes it,” Smith says.

Fred Chuang, display manager for Tiffany’s in Beverly Hills and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, surprised his co-workers by setting the Costa Mesa store’s holiday table with touches of black.

He placed black service plates underneath Tiffany’s holiday “garland” china to bring out the dark shading of the china pattern’s crimson bows and berries.

For a centerpiece, he filled a $20,000 turn-of-the-century silver bowl with fresh fruit, taking care to add black grapes to the apples and pears to pick up the colors in the china.

“The black grapes pull it all together,” Chuang says. “It looks sophisticated instead of somber.”

Chuang uses just enough muted shades of red and green to suggest Christmas without turning his table into a holiday cliche.

“With the fruits and nuts repeated in the china pattern and the centerpiece, the table is reminiscent of a della robbia wreath,” he says.

Chuang has the luxury of choosing from all of Tiffany’s stock to decorate a table. Although he has used diamond bracelets for napkin rings and pinned silver brooches on the napkins, in most cases he exercises restraint. For example, he chose simple but elegant baccarat stemware to add sparkle to the setting to Tiffany’s holiday table.

“I didn’t want loud pieces competing with each other,” he explained, adding:

“I have a preference for real things. No plastic, no glitter. Wax fruit would be awful. Candles that couldn’t be burned would be wrong for me.”

Chuang has judged table settings in decorators’ competitions and says people too often resort to gimmicks that prove impractical when it comes time to serve the meal.

“One decorator poured sand all over his table. It made an interesting look, but you would never want to put your knife and fork back on the table after you had used them,” Chuang says.

Piling too much on the holiday table is a common mistake. Even those who can’t borrow from Tiffany’s storeroom can be lured into loading up the table with too much glitz.

“Less is more,” Smith says. “Many people make the mistake of having too much. They want to get everything on that table.”

Smith looks for inexpensive ways to add glamour to her table at home. She studies decorating magazines and visits the home sections in department stores and craft shops for inspiration.

She improvises with things she finds around her house. To make a centerpiece, for instance, she will pile round Christmas balls in a crystal bowl, or pour candy canes into a clear vase, or fill a brass urn with greenery. When she found that her red tablecloth was too big for her table, she gathered up the edges with napkin rings.

“It was so pretty--and how easy!” she says.

Sue Springer, a sales clerk at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar, uses her favorite art objects for centerpieces on her holiday table at home, as well as on the holiday tables she decorates for the nursery’s annual Christmas Fantasy displays.

“So many people have things tucked away in closets and drawers that can be used on the table,” Springer advises.

On a green glass table at Roger’s Gardens, she arranged a large verdigris statue of a deer among brass and Burgundy candleholders and sprigs of berries and leaves.

Instead of true green and red, she substituted forest green and cranberry colors, with gold accents for a rich, Old World look.

To match the holly and ribbons on the cream-colored china, she added Burgundy service plates and rose and cream-colored place mats.

“Most people want to stay within the decorator colors they have in their homes,” she says.

Springer even decorated a traditional Christmas table to match a Southwestern-style decor.

She adorned a wood table with a garland of greenery wound with wooden beads painted in the southwest colors of turquoise, green, sand and rose. In the center, she placed two ceramic Christmas geese and tall bleached-wood candleholders with aqua-colored candles and tiny wreaths of crystallized fruit.

For New Year’s, Roger’s Gardens set up a buffet table in shimmering gold, with 24-inch brass candleholders, a tapestry tablecloth and two large papier-mache angels with gilded wings entangled in loops of a gold mini-star garland.

Decorators say you don’t need sleigh-loads of ornaments to set an elegant spread. Many table trimmings can be found in nature.

For a contemporary, “glitterized” look, load the table with juniper branches, orchids, white anthericum and heliconia, suggests Paul Ecke, owner of the Black Iris Inc. in Laguna Beach. For extra sparkle, add crystallized berries, faux pearls, mirrors and cut glass.

“We use a lot of Lucite and a lot of glitter to give it a Christmas look,” Ecke says.

To complement the contemporary decorations, he suggests using a shiny tablecloth such as a lame or moire fabric. The shiny fabrics can also be sewn into a heavy coil, braided into a garland and draped across the table.

“With a lot of candlelight, the whole table glows,” Ecke says.

Those who prefer a romantic, old-fashioned table can use traditional Christmas greenery--cedar, pine cones, red roses and tulips.

“We’re doing a lot of Renaissance tables, with rich red velvet, gold-leaf foliage and traditional Belgium lace tablecloths,” Ecke says.

At the Black Iris, florists fill large crystal ginger jars with cranberries and pomegranates. Sometimes they place small jars of potpourri or a votive candle by each place setting.

“It’s getting back to the Old World Christmas,” Ecke says. “People want to bring in the warmth again.”