Have you ever wondered how stylists create those swoon-worthy tablescapes for holiday dinners?

These tips are for you.

I love to meld rustic farmhouse styles with a bit of glam in all my designs, so you’ll see how I bring this together in the Village Antiques showroom step-by-step. 

You can apply any of these tips to your own dining room for the holidays. Best of all, designing a tablescape design doesn’t cost very much money, and it takes very little time for a huge payoff in creating an inviting environment for sharing meals.

Once you get the basic techniques down for tablescape styling, you’ll be able to approach this part of your dinner hosting with excitement and delight.

Create A Christmas Tablescape Theme With What You’ve Got

When choosing a palette for your Christmas tablescape design, it’s important to work with the colors and texture in the room so that there’s a sense of unity throughout the space.

I’ll be working on this gorgeous light, golden rustic wood dining table set in the shop to show you how to add a bit of holiday glam to the simple farmhouse look.

Available at Village Antiques

Because of the tables’ warm undertone, I’m sticking to similar wood hues and using gold as my hint of glamour.

For function’s sake, and to show off these charming details. I don’t want to cover up the entire table with this tablescape design.

Selecting A Farmhouse Christmas Table Runner

Table runners add color, texture, and dimension to your design. It also serves to protect the surface of your table from candle wax, water spills, or hot serving plates.

The length of your table runner will depend on how long your table is. Typically, your table runner should be one-third of the width of your table so that it covers the center of your table.

Available at Village Antiques

If you’re choosing to have the runner hang off the ends of your table, aim to have it fall no longer than 6–8 inches. Here, I’m picking a rectangular runner that barely meets the ends of this table to leave room for a place setting at either end.

Use A Tray To Contain Your Design

Decorative trays are one of my favorite design elements. 

Available at Village Antiques

They’re surprisingly versatile. Use it to serve food, drinks, assemble groupings of florals, candles, or a base for your tablescape design!

On this table, I’m using this antique-style wood and mirrored tray. I love the weathered, distressed look of the wood that matches the finish of this dining table.

The mirrored surface also adds a bit of glamour to the room without going overboard.

You don’t need to use a tray for this farmhouse Christmas design, but I try to find an element that anchors the center of my table. Large breadboards and serving bowls also work here.

Start With Your Main Decorative Christmas Element

It’s much easier to create a sense of harmony and balance when you start with a focal point.

In this case, I’m using this gold fruit bowl. 

Available at Village Antiques

You can fill this bowl with whatever your heart desires. For a holiday tablescape, I think decorative ornaments or gold, ornamental fruit — like these pears I’m using — look fantastic displayed in a container like this.

Available at Village Antiques 

If you find that your items are sinking to the bottom of a deep bowl, you can fill up the bowl with some crumpled kraft paper to prop them up for display.

Vary The Height Of Your Farmhouse Christmas Decor

Varying the height of your decorative elements helps to create movement and flow to your design. 

Available at Village Antiques

It makes the centerpiece feel more dynamic.

I’m using small light up trees, gold trees mixed in with some faux green mini trees to fill up the tray space.

I would be mindful of ensuring that your holiday tablescape height doesn’t go higher than eye-level height when seated at your table.

After all, you want to engage with the people at your table, and a tall tablescape design may be distracting.

Place Items On A Zig Zag

Just as we’re using height to create a sense of movement through the room, we want to lay down these Christmas tablescape elements in a zig-zag rather than a straight line.

Available at Village Antiques

Zig-zagging your decorative elements also helps to prevent overcrowding one spot of your design.

Now you know the mystery of zig-zagging; you’ll be able to spot it in any professional tablescape design because it works so flawlessly.

How To Fill In The Empty Spaces

At this point, you may notice some awkward empty pockets on your tray. This is where I would add your candle lighting or other smaller items to occupy this space. 

Available at Village Antiques

For this, I opted for smaller Christmas-themed decor that won’t steal the show but complements the overall aesthetic.

When adding these smaller decorative elements, use the same zig-zag principle to maintain flow and balance.

Think Outside The Tray

I always start with the center of my design — in this case, the tray —and work my way out.

To continue the Christmas tablescape to the ends of the table, I’m adding decorative groupings and keeping it simple — as simple as I can. 

Available at Village Antiques

Sticking to the rustic Christmas theme, my groupings consist of small gold crowns, reindeer, and bud vases filled with eucalyptus stems. I’m working with a warm color palette of the room and the furniture finishes, and I want to keep that harmony throughout.

Test Out What Works And What Doesn’t

Designing a tablescape is an intuitive process.

You’ll find yourself testing out arrangements to see what looks pleasing to the eye and what clashes. 

Available at Village Antiques

As I worked on this design, I realized that less is more in some areas, and I changed things around as I went. It’s okay if something in your head doesn’t turn out in execution.

It’s all about the process and finding the pattern, rhythm, and fullness that I’m going for.

Wrapping Up: Farmhouse Christmas Tablescape Design

I hope these simple tips have given you some inspiration and confidence to try something new at your dinner table this holiday season.

For any questions, I encourage you to leave them in the comments section below or reach out on social media.

If you’re looking for more tablescape inspiration, follow us on Instagram, where you can peruse the other designs we’ve set up at our shop, Village Antiques.

Many of these pieces I used in this tutorial can be found at Village Antiques in Houston, TX. We’re open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, stop on by! Or feel free to give us a call at 713-468-3931 if you have any questions.

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Until the next time we meet, keep making your home amazing with your design gifts!