Our home is small. You could say it's freakishly small, but I prefer to call it cottage-like. (That makes it sound so much cuter.)
So hosting my big, fat, Cuban family for holidays is often a challenge. We have to move furniture around to make room for everyone. Can I just add right here that even though it's kind of a challenge, it's my absolute pleasure to have my house full of the noisy people that I love best.
In the past, my sister, Alina hosted Nochebuena. She had the largest home which made it easy to accommodate the small army that constitutes my immediate family. But last year she downsized and so the Cuban Christmas Eve defaulted to us.
Did I mention that our house is freakishly small cottage-like?
But, lucky for me, I'm married to Mr. Creative Guy. (I sometimes have a few good ideas myself, but that's not important right now.)
Challenge Number 1: I happen to like everyone to have a place at the table. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think everyone feels more at home when they have A Place. Plus, there is nothing that I love more than a beautifully set table.
Challenge Number 2: Place settings for 24, plus the kids' table. I like my tables to have a certain amount of uniformity. And yes, I do happen to have lovely white buffet dishes. If I were hosting a buffet… But this is Nochebuena I'm talking about. And I wanted to seat everyone. *Eric does face-palm*
I should add right here that I have amassed quite a nice collection of Christmas dishes over the years. I like our Christmas morning table nicely set (for the 6 of us) and Target has had some beautiful place settings in the past. (Have you started doing the math yet? You know what's coming next, right?)
We have managed to art direct the settings for enough of our kids' plays that we know a thing or two about creating a mood.
Mr. Creative Guy wrapped our Patio Cover in stage canvas. (See the 26 foot backdrop we painted for Lucy's Spring Musical here. We just happened to have lots of this stuff left over, but that's not important right now, either.) And he bought a square of carpet to cover the patio slab.
This room addition made it possible for us to seat 12 people, plus set up a drinks table. Genius.
Which then just leads us to the setting of the tables. This is where it got good….
I was able to set up Christmas Themed Tables. ("You did what??") I know. Shut up.
There was The Snowflake Table. So named for my (ancient!) red snowflake table cloth & napkins. I found a ton of these glittery snowflakes and hot glued them to old acrylic napkin rings. That table got gold chargers and the gold rimmed goblets. (The small shot glasses are for Creme de Vie….of course.)
The Rustic Reindeer Table got its name from the cute little metal reindeer holding the placecards. (Actually, I didn't name it. The people who ended up sitting here started calling themselves the Rustic Reindeers. The wine was flowing by then and everyone was getting creative….) I found the reindeer at Crate & Barrel. They were really ornaments, but I yanked off the string and called them placecard holders. No one was the wiser. (Certainly not after the wine started flowing, but that's not important right now, either….)
I already had the plates and the red glasses. The little cherry-jingle-bell napkin rings were from a long ago Nochebuena that my mom had done. I am so glad I inherited these. They just make me happy.
The Ornament Table is the next one. I love these dishes. They are simple and elegant and they just scream "Merry Christmas." Plus the red chargers look amazing under the red-rimmed plates. The placecard holders are little ornaments. Sadly, one broke the morning of the setup. Of course, being the hostess, it happened to be mine. Ooops. 😉 The gold-trimmed glasses have my parents' names on them and were from their 50th anniversary celebration. Again, happy to have inherited these.
The next table was The Poinsettia Table. These dishes look spectacular with crystal and those silver chargers. The white glasses with the red rims were another wonderful find.
What's fun about my home is that, besides being freakishly small cottage-like, it has white beadboard and red leather furniture. Almost like it was meant for Christmas celebrations.
Kids! I almost forgot….we have a Kids' Table, too. There are 7 great-grands. But only 5 were in attendance. We covered our coffee table which obviously worked best with the kid-size chairs. And provided an activity – in this case – cookie decorating. The basket held frosting and sprinkles and all of that kind of stuff. I added some noisemakers to their places. (Dollar bins are ideal for these sorts of things.)
I was quite pleased with the results. Instead of my house appearing freakishly small too cottage-like, it felt cozy and like it had 5 different neighborhoods.
I couldn't quite get over how serendipitously it all came together.
I know you're wondering… where in the world did we manage in this freakishly small cottage-like atmosphere, to put the Christmas tree?
I love my family. =D
Do you host your family for Nochebuena? How do you do it? Tell me.
You are freakishly AWESOME! Love all the ideas!
Martica Estewart.
That was amazing! People forget how much planning and details it takes to pull off this kind of partay! I inherited Noche Buena in my family. I love the whole shebang except for the day of…did I change the towels? are the flowers dying? are my frijoles aguado? can’t forget to light the luminarias, no Daniel you can’t wear that t-shirt…but, when everybody is here and there’s all the ruckus and laughter, it’s just magic. May you have a smooth and magical time!
Hmm…I wonder how I’d look as a blond?
=D
nancy,You are obviously very accustomed to the drill. Thank you. I have to start psyching up now.
I met my husband, at the age of 14, and so, my in-laws always did Noche Buena at their house. Both families would join together and celebrate there.Just four years ago, my father in law passed away and I inherit Noche Buena at our place. He always cooked the pig himself. I remember many years ago both my father in law and his dad killed the pig in the back yard and preparing it for the event. Yuck! Never wanted to see that again. LOL!!!! Too much work, so the following years, they would just go to El Matador and buy the pig ready for the adobo. Whew!
Not having to much time on our side, we have been buying the pork already cooked. But everything else was home made. Frijoles negros, yuca, etc. But last year, was the first year that my husband cooked the pig himself. It was DELICIOUS!!! After years of watching his dad, he did an awesome job!!! He is planing on doing it again this year.
I loved your decorating ideas. Never thought of doing the tables differently. But I guess that all depends on the amount of stuff you have to work with.
Besote! Ody
Chargers? I always wondered what those were called. Here I am, at age 60 learning a new thing that I should have known anyway because my parents were in the restaurant business. My favorite name for a dish is the monkey dish. We had tons of those in our restaurant for serving vegetables.Going to send you a story via your private email regarding a Nochbuena at my Uncle Cuco’s house when I was about nine on a very rainy Chritmas Eve in Miami. It is a bit more that PG13, and I am SURE everyone here would like to hear about it, but my judgement checker says not to write about it here.
Chargers… who knew? Oh, YOU did!
Un fuerte abrazo,
Ed
Ody,So delighted to hear he’s planning on doing it again this year. That is exactly how traditions begin. =D
Besos!
Yes, Ed. Chargers! And I think I might have some monkey dishes around, too. (Sometimes I’m cool that way. =D)Please send me the email. So very curious now!
Ody,Cuco knows what a monkey dish is. 😉
Ed, you are so funny, I too was impressed with the name of those plates. Chargers? Who knew?! Oh, Marty knew!!!! LOL!!!!! Now, what is a monkey dish?Ody
Ody a monkey dish is a very small dish that many restaurants use to serve side dishes like vegetables. They typically hold about a half cup or so. I know… chargers! So does that make the football team from San Diego the San Diego Plates?Ed
Los Platos de San Diego. It works for me. LOL
Maybe if I ate out of monkey plates I would be much thinner. LOL!!!!!