Thanksgiving Table Setting - Laying the Table

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Christina Haire
Christina Haire Interior Design & Antiques
http://www.christinahaire.com/  
301-986-9075

For more than 20 years, Christina Haire’s creativity and passion for design has only been matched by her singular dedication to making clients happy. A member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), her expertise in residential and commercial design has won her a stellar reputation and an international clientele. Christina has participated in many designer showhouses, including those of the National Symphony and Washington Design Center. She won an ASID award for excellence in a single room in 2005, and her work has been featured in numerous local and national publications. Her home was also the subject of two HGTV programs on interior design.

With a design philosophy best summed up as luxurious and inviting, her work is marked by warm colors, sumptuous fabrics and classic furnishings. She deftly melds the old with the new, the good with the not-so-good, and seamlessly combines the precious antique with the equally treasured memento or flea market find. Christina makes it her mission to reflect the very best of each client by creating personal rooms that are exquisitely tasteful and elegant, yet entirely functional. An unabashed lover of chairs, Christina is quick to admit that she has never met a chair she didn’t like—which is not to say that pillows, settees, ottomans, mirrors and sconces don’t also get their due.

In addition to her famed collection of European antiques and accessories, Christina has developed a love for Asian art and artifacts. Now dividing her time between the U.S. and Singapore, she has uncommon access to an array of Southeast Asian treasures. Among her favorite finds are rare Tibetan chests, vibrant Thai silks, handmade lacquerware from Burma and Vietnam and ornate silver from Cambodia.

A native of New York, Christina is a graduate of Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. She is an avid traveler, gardener, reader and community activist.

She maintains a design studio in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and Singapore.

Thanksgiving Table Setting - Laying the Table

In this video Christina Haire, an interior designer and principal of Christina Haire Interior Design and Antiques demonstrates how to set a Thanksgiving table. This video includes an overview of the steps needed to plan the table, the necessary elements for a basic setting and demonstrates step by step how to set the table. It includes tips and techniques as well as some variations on the Thanksgiving theme to make it uniquely yours.

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Transcripts

Christina Haire: Hi! I am Christina Haire. I am an interior designer and today we are showing you how to set Thanksgiving table. Our Thanksgiving table is set with lots of holiday traditions and memories that we always use and then mix it up a little bit with some fresh interest. It's my family's favorite holiday and so it's very, very important to us in the one time every year that we all come together.

The first thing we will do is lay our linen table cloth. Freshly laundered and pressed for the occasion. It's laid on the table. We are also using antique monogram napkins that have nothing to do with our own monogram, but they are beautiful because of the handy work. In using the linens for this table, I like to use all white linens. I use white linen table cloth and napkins, but you can use whatever you like and whatever is appealing to you. Just remember, if it looks good, it is good.

The next thing we will do is lay the plates equidistant around the table for eight people. We will use our flatware which on the right hand side of the plate will be the knife, on the left side of the plate will be the dinner fork and on the outside of that, the salad fork and next to the salad fork is the linen napkin. Above the plate, we have the ceramic Asian soup spoon and to the right are the two glasses. The first one being the water glass and to the right of that is the wine glass.

In our table, we always use foil covered chocolate turkeys as a place setting for each person. In addition to that, we have used different kinds of place cards for this day and today we are using leaves that I collected outside and have written on with magic marker each person's name. That's how we set the table and usually, there are some family here to help me do that and having finished that, we will talk about the centerpiece.

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