Celebrate Christmas with a vintage-inspired touch, using roses and elements from your garden. From a floral-themed table to handmade gifts and decorations, create a charming, nostalgic atmosphere for your festive celebrations.

Set the scene

Celebrate a summer Christmas by setting a pretty table in the garden, on the veranda or, like us, in the garden greenhouse. The rose motif on our embroidered tablecloth was the inspiration for colouring in the picture. We used a set of floral vintage plates, but a mixture of plates can also work if the flower motifs go well together. Then we added floral napkins, pink crystal glass and pretty pearl-handled cutlery. The table is finished with handmade embroidered crackers, ceramic figurines and brightly coloured glass vase with flowers from the garden.

Green Tree

For our Christmas in the greenhouse, we left the plastic tree to gather dust and bought a small cypress that we can plant out in the garden after the festivities. Place the tree in an attractive vintage tin and place it on a table surrounded by wrapped gifts. Instead of the usual baubles, you can decorate it with a string of paper decorations that you have made yourself. For another vintage element, we placed on old scale on the table and filled it with last year’s shiny ornaments.

Gift Wrapping

We wrapped all our gifts with sheets of white paper and a roll of brown paper. Look on the internet for pretty vintage pictures of birds, butterflies, flowers and Christmas figures and have the printed onto thicker paper. Cut them out neatly with your craft knife and glue them onto the gifts. Play with ribbon so it becomes part of the picture and lift up some of the petals and wings to create a three-dimensional effect. For gift tags, you can type the names in a pretty typeface on your computer, print them and cut them out with swallow tails. Glue them onto the gift parcels to complete.

Wreath

Buy a vine wreath from a florist’s shop and decorate it to match your flower theme. If you, like us, use fresh flowers, it’s best to do it on the day of the festive meal. We inserted roses and pretty branches from the garden into the wreath, and added greenery to hide the stems. Finish off with ribbon in the same colour as you used for the gifts plus a shiny bauble or two, if you prefer. Your local Spotlight or discount store will have a wealth of materials.

Berry punch

Cool off with a delicious fruit punch for the table. Mix a bought fruit cordial – ours is a pomegranate and elderberry flavour – with soda water or lemonade. Pour into a punch bowl with lots of ice and add berries, halved strawberries and mint leaves.

Photographs Henk Venter

Styling & Text: Dala Watts

Want more? Click here for The Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide