Tips for Fitting Everyone at the Table this Holiday Season

The impending holiday season typically invokes travel, quality time with family, and an abundance of food and desserts. However, as families grow over time with in-laws and children, space ultimately runs short. Through creatively assessing your space and adjusting for headcount, you can easily fit everyone at the table this holiday season using these top five tips

Sometimes, your dining room’s size was meant for a total head count of four, maybe five if everyone didn’t mind bumping elbows every few minutes. When large families get together for the holiday season, consider using a larger space such as your living room to host the festivities. Push your current furniture closer to the walls and utilize the free area in the center of the room. 

Do you feel that your living room is just as confining? Take the festivities outside! By combining your dining table with extra folding tables, you can easily make the appearance of a large holiday table with the use of a tablecloth and a few extra folding chairs no matter where you decide to set up your dining.

When preparing the countless dishes and trimmings, it is easy for us to want to load our first plate with small portions of everything, intending to sample before we decide how to spend the rest of our appetite. Using smaller dining plates will save your dining table from overcrowding and won’t limit your guests to how much food they can eat. Before your guests arrive, pre-arrange your table according to the number of guests who will be attending to see how much extra room you will have when you switch your large plates for smaller ones. As an added bonus, more trips to refill your plate allows mid-meal breaks that help you make room for a second or third helping!

Creating a buffet line has been the saving grace to limited table space. This concept is perfect for when your aunt brings her famous green bean casserole despite your polite request that no one needed to bring anything. A buffet can be organized in any fashion, but if you needed to spare your dining table from holiday decorations to optimize the space, the buffet line is another great place to add some holiday embellishments.  

If your family seems to comprise of more than two or three children, a kid’s table can most certainly help fit everyone at the table this holiday season. Topping the kid’s table with a paper tablecloth and providing coloring utensils can be a great source of entertainment when the food no longer holds their attention.

As a final attempt to help bring everyone to the table this holiday season, replacing a few cumbersome chairs with a bench can help seat an extra person or two. Does your piano bench fit the need, but needs a little tune up to remain sturdy? Have some of your current chairs felt less comfortable over the years? Furniture restoration could be the quick solution to reusing your preexisting furniture and helping bring everyone together comfortably at the dinner table. At Wehrli Furniture Co., we are dedicated to restoring and reupholstering your current furniture and reimaging it to your taste. Contact our professionals to see which pieces of furniture could use an enlivening refurbishment.