Thanksgiving and Christmas festive placemats
For both Thanksgiving and Christmas, a set of festive placemats is a practical and stylish design choice. This can take the form of a neutral design rather than a full-on Christmas theme with snowflakes, reindeers or holly. The main advantage of a neutral design of festive place mats is that they can be used for a variety of seasonal and standard dinners, while still maintaining an element of a festive theme to make the event memorable for your family and dinner guests.
With the main events being Thanksgiving and Christmas then your choice of festive placemat might depend on if you think you are going to use the same set for the same dinner guests at each event. If you can afford to financially then different sets would be the preferred choice; an alternative would be to bring out an older design from a previous year at one of the events.
This runs the risk that someone will notice, but for example the popular Spode Christmas Tree placemats are a classic design that has been around for decades and it is perfectly fine to rotate your Christmas tablemats from year to year. This system works particularly well if you have any of the Christmas Tree ceramic dinnerware items, such as a gravy dish or dinner plates.
Hard, cork backed place mat designs
The advantage of hardboard, cork backed festive placemats is the ability to change up the mood of your dinner table based on the choice of design. This can be quickly and easily changed depending upon how you feel on the day, without taking any risk that your dining table could get damaged.
With many festive lunches or dinners that feature multiple courses and a variety of drinks served over an extended period of time, there is an increased risk of spilt drinks and food stains. Luckily the durability of hard, cork placemats means the area of your table covered by the festive placemat will stay protected and safe from even the most careless or distracted of dinner guests.
Ideas for stylish festive placemats
For Thanksgiving placemats you could try a more neutral Autumnal pattern that brings up memories of a traditional harvest time or food gathering event, such as the Pimpernel Abundant Fall placemats. Depending upon the décor of your dining room, this type of festive placemats pattern has the advantage that you can use them throughout the year as they are an attractive multi-purpose design that does not feel over bearing.
Another classic design that works as a festive placemat and can still be used at any time of year is the black and white Heritage design from Pimpernel. This pattern features historic and stylish engravings of flowers from the Spode collection and is a broadly neutral theme which can help to enhance the look and feel of your dinner service and the rest of the décor in your dining room.
With a range of religious holidays it can be difficult to find a design that covers every occasion, particularly if you are celebrating multiple events. One pattern which could be described as multifunctional is the Fleur de Lys festive placemats from Pimpernel. Much like the Heritage tablemats the Fleur de Lys design is neutral enough with a light gold pattern. This will look fantastic for your dinner event and still blend in nicely to the theme of your decoration.