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
the table looks wonderful......glad you were able to celebrate the special day.........
Posted by: Chookyblue | May 04, 2014 at 08:30 AM
just stunning! you are a born stylist!
Posted by: Kate | May 06, 2014 at 12:07 PM
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.
Posted by: Mary O'Neill | May 10, 2014 at 07:29 AM