Christmas is the time to use all your beautiful things. No other time calls for your best and finest more than Christmas. No better time to polish the silver, to wash the crystal, and to create a special tablesetting.
Christmas Sleigh Bell
Tablesetting
White, green, silver, and black seems to be THE color combination for this year's Christmas decorations. The Hearth and Hand green and black Christmas collection, designed by Chip and Joanna Gaines, sold out quickly at our neighborhood Target store. One of the popular bloggers I read regularly, used black and green in her Christmas decor this year.
As I gathered things for a Christmas table setting this year, everything fell into place for my table also to use this year's popular green and black color collection.
An old-fashioned black sleigh carrying a black tree and adorned with a green wreath sparked the tablesetting and was the first thing I printed several weeks ago. A NOËL greeting added just the touch of French Country I love to the card.
A different black sleigh makes a complementary name card atop green wire tree place card holders... black bases and silver bells fit together nicely with the table decorations.
The set of place card holders has four different styles of green metal trees. All with personality PLUS.
Wallace silver company has issued silverplate sleigh bell Christmas ornaments annually since 1971. Each year has a different pattern and the year engraved on the bells. Before this Christmas, I had two of the bells. One from 1977 and one from 1983 that always hung, along with several other ornaments, in the vaulted ceiling of the stairwell.
In the early years of marriage, silverplated Christmas ornaments were very special since our budget was small with not much room for extras. A Bible translator's salary and a teacher's salary provided enough for the essentials, but not much more. I made out menus two weeks at a time, and hamburger meat was an every-other-night-staple. Sometimes it was meatloaf; sometimes it was spaghetti; sometimes it was Hungarian goulash; sometimes it was tacos.
The two sleigh bells were the perfect items for this year's Christmas table to go with the black sleigh place cards and black sleigh plate cards.
Have you noticed that no idea ever seems to be totally original? As my Christmas sleigh bell tablesetting was coming together, Miss Mustard Seed wrote a touching story about her collection of Wallace sleigh bells begun from her Oma's collection. Marian adds to her inherited bells from her grandmother by buying them from Ebay and Etsy.
Aha! I was able to find a few vintage sleigh bells for good prices from Ebay after reading Miss Mustard Seed's post, and my Christmas table has five sleigh bells instead of only two.
One of the vintage sleigh bells on the table is a Reed and Barton, about the same size, but with a little different style of engraving than the Wallace bells.
Five crystal candlesticks, five small preserved boxwood wreaths, and one faceted crystal spray complete the centerpiece.
Sparkling crystals mixed with black, green, and silver make a festive centerpiece... special for Christmas.
One more vintage sleigh bell hangs as part of the Noël Christmas swag.
The centerpiece is narrow and works well with the small French breakfast table.
Coasters with evergreen designs repeat the green and black colors in the centerpiece and sleigh cards.
No candles in the candlesticks keep the centerpiece low for easy conversation across the table.
J O Y E U X N O Ë L
from my table to yours...
As another year draws to a close, I would like to thank you for reading Botanic Bleu. Your gracious comments uplift my spirits and add joy to my life. Thank you for making Botanic Bleu a part of your life.
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