Thanksgiving Table Setting - Centerpiece

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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 - Centerpiece

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 setting a Thanksgiving table. We have set the table and the sideboard and now we are going to do the centerpiece. Our Thanksgiving table centerpiece is flanked by two candelabra at either end and for the actual centerpiece, I have collected many things - pumpkins, gourds, sunflower seed heads which I was able to get at my farmer's market that were offered for free. I have magnolia leaves that I gild with gold spray paint. I have many, many leaves that I collected from outside and then some wine berries which are beautiful coral colored berries at this time of year and then we will just put them all together and I don't really have a plan when I start out. I just think that I want a long, visual display for the length of our table and I will place the gourds in different positions to give it a little height and a little texture and then add the wine berry branches so that you can see them from both sides. It's important to remember that there are people on both sides of the table so you can see the elements from each side.

You can use items that reflect the season in your region as well as found objects. The centerpiece of our centerpiece is a glass pedestal cake stand and on it is what I think is spectacular gourd that is a silvery gray color and I have used a little bit of gold leaf and just smooshed it around the pumpkin and on the stem to make it reflect some light and make it as special as I think it is. This is how we have set our table for this year's Thanksgiving. Last year, it was different and next year it will be a little bit different also. Next we will talk about some changes and variations that you can make for your own holiday table setting.

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