Dad's 80th - Tablescape

I should have posted this post months ago as it was such a lovely time for me as well as for my family. On Christmas Eve my Dad turned 80! It's a bit late but I wanted to share it with you. Christmas Eve is always a busy day as we are usually all getting ourselves ready for the next day - Christmas. Well I just love to make things a little more manic, so I hosted Dad's 80th Birthday lunch on Christmas Eve - being a sit down 3 course meal for 15 family and very close friends. As always, I am so completely pre-occupied with all of the cooking and preparations, I rarely remember to take photos. This time I do have photos of the table but not the meal. Because the celebration was for my Dad, I thought long and hard about how to decorate the table. With Christmas being the next day, I was definately on a budget.

 

I love decorating tables with lots of flowers and bling but this time I thought I would try something more subdued and masculine. There is a park near me that has many eucalyptus trees where the branches hang down to the ground so I raced down the day before and grabbed a heap of them - tied them into small bundles with fine wire and laid them down the centre of the table like a runner.

 

 

I then poked white lillies in tiny votives in between the eucalyptus leaves.

 

 

Every table needs a centre piece so I filled a soup tureen with white dalia's.

 

 

 

 

I shopped in second hand and antique stores for months leading up to the party, looking for vintage silver napkin rings.

 

 

 

 

My Dad was a sugar cane farmer all of his working life so I thought I would bring a bit of the "bush" onto the table by using the eucalyptus leaves. Not only did they look great, they smelt divine!

 

 

I was thrilled with how it all turned out. It was a wonderful day where inbetween all of the preparation for Christmas, we were able to take time out and celebrate 80 years of life.

 

Take care....Di

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Chookyblue]

the table looks wonderful......glad you were able to celebrate the special day.........

[Kate]

just stunning! you are a born stylist!

[Mary O'Neill]

The meal was beautiful. I took lots of photos all day, but only got empty plates in the ones I took at the table! That is a testament to how lovely it all was. She does a fantastic job of both settings and food.