Christmas floral arrangements & centrepieces

Christmas floral arrangement or centrepiece: buy guide

A good Christmas arrangement does one job well: it makes a table, mantelpiece or hallway feel finished without getting in the way. The difference between one that looks right and one that quietly annoys everyone for a fortnight usually comes down to size, shape and where you put it, rather than how expensive it was. This guide covers what to measure, what to look for in quality, what to expect if an arrangement needs a little assembly, and how to use candles safely with artificial foliage.

Artificial or fresh?

Fresh Christmas flowers are lovely but short-lived. Cut pine and fir start dropping needles within a week or two indoors, and flowers such as amaryllis and roses are usually past their best by the time the main event arrives if you buy them in early December. That leaves you either buying twice or living with a tired arrangement on Christmas Day.

An artificial Christmas arrangement can go out at the end of November and still look the same on Twelfth Night. It can sit next to a radiator, it will not leak onto the table, and the same piece comes out again next year. The trade-off is scent: faux fir does not smell of anything. The simplest fix is to tuck a few sprigs of real spruce or eucalyptus into the arrangement a day or two before guests arrive, or to put a pine-scented candle elsewhere in the room. Nobody will be inspecting the needles.

Start with where it is going

Before you look at a single product, decide where the arrangement will live and measure that space. The right centrepiece for a dining table is often the wrong one for a mantelpiece, and vice versa.

Dining table

A Christmas table flower arrangement has to share the table with plates, glasses, serving dishes and people who want to talk to each other. Three measurements matter:

• Height. Keep it below eye level when seated, which in practice means no more than about 30cm. Florists use a simple test: sit at the table, rest your elbow on it, and the height of your wrist is the maximum height for the arrangement. Taller pieces only work if they are very narrow at eye level (a slim taper candle, for example) or so tall that guests see underneath them, which is rarely practical at home.
• Width. Most UK dining tables are 80–100cm wide. Allow at least 15–20cm either side of the centrepiece for dishes to be passed, which means something around 30–40cm across is about the limit on a standard table.
• Length. On a rectangular table, a single centrepiece should take up no more than about a third of the length. On a table over 180cm, two or three smaller arrangements spaced along the middle usually look better than one long piece, and they can be moved to a sideboard when the food comes out.

If your table extends for Christmas, buy for the size it will be on the day, but check the arrangement will not look oversized once the table goes back to normal. Two smaller pieces are more flexible than one large one for exactly this reason.

Round tables suit a round or square arrangement placed dead centre, roughly a quarter to a third of the table's diameter across.

Mantelpiece

Mantels are shallower than they look, often only 15–20cm deep. An arrangement that is round in plan will either hang off the front or have to be pushed back against the wall. Look for pieces described as front-facing, half or flat-backed, which are designed to sit against a wall with all the detail on one side. If the fireplace is used, keep artificial foliage well clear of it; polyester and plastic foliage will melt and can ignite, and rising heat can distort it even without a flame.

Sideboard, console or hall table

This is where taller, fuller arrangements come into their own. Without the sightline problem of a dining table, a 45–60cm piece in an urn or tall vase can make an entrance. Check the depth of the surface as you would a mantel, and if the arrangement is mainly seen from one side, a front-facing design makes better use of the budget than a fully round one.

Coffee table

Low and compact works best here. Anything with candles should be stable enough not to tip if the table is knocked, and the arrangement should leave room for the things a coffee table actually gets used for.

Shapes of Christmas arrangement and where each works

• Long and low. A horizontal arrangement of foliage, berries and flowers, often with candle holders set along the length. This is the classic Christmas table centrepiece and the shape most retailers mean by the word. Works on rectangular tables and deep sideboards; too long for most mantels.
• Round or posy style in a bowl or vase. Flowers and foliage arranged in a dome. Suits round and square tables, coffee tables and side tables. Check the overall height, as the vase adds to it.
• Candle ring or wreath centrepiece. A ring of foliage with space in the middle for a single pillar candle, or four holders around it in the Advent tradition. Compact and symmetrical, so it works well on round tables.
• Tall arrangement in an urn or vase. Height and presence for a hall or sideboard. Not for dining tables.
• Single statement plant. A faux poinsettia, amaryllis or orchid in a pot. Simple, and useful on windowsills and smaller surfaces where a mixed arrangement would be too busy.

Candles: LED or real candle holders?

Many Christmas floral centrepieces include candles in some form. Some of ours come with LED candles built in; others have ordinary candle holders for you to add your own. Each has its own things to check.

Arrangements with LED candles

• Batteries. Small tea-light style LEDs usually take CR2032 coin cells; pillar-style LED candles usually take AA or AAA. Check which type, whether they are included, and how easy the battery compartment is to reach once the candle is sitting in the foliage. You will be changing them at some point.
• Timer. A built-in timer (commonly six hours on, eighteen off) means you switch the arrangement on once at the time you want it lit and then leave it alone for the season. Without one, you are reaching into the foliage every evening.
• Colour of light. Warm white (roughly 2200–2700K) looks like candlelight. Cool, bluish LEDs look like a torch and flatten the colour of red berries and foliage. A gentle flicker is more convincing than a steady glow.
• Candle finish. Real wax or wax-coated LED candles look much better than smooth plastic ones at close range.

LED candles are the safer choice on a dining table, where people are reaching across, and the only sensible choice if the arrangement will be lit when nobody is in the room.

Arrangements with candle holders

Real candles give a warmth that LEDs still do not quite match, but artificial foliage is plastic and fabric and will burn. If you are buying an arrangement with candle holders:

• Check the holder size before buying candles. Standard UK dinner (taper) candles have a base of about 22mm; pillar holders vary widely. A candle that rattles in its holder is a tipping risk, and one that has to be forced in can crack the holder. A small blob of candle wax or a candle grip fixes a slightly loose fit.
• Keep the flame well above and away from the foliage. Fire services advise keeping any flame at least 30cm from anything that can burn. In a centrepiece that is not always achievable, so use tall tapers rather than short ones, make sure nothing arches over the holder, and extinguish candles before they burn down to within about 5cm of the foliage or holder.
• Stability. Pick up the arrangement, or check its weight in the listing. A heavy base or a weighted container matters far more when there is a flame on top of it.
• Never leave lit candles unattended, and keep them away from the edges of the table where sleeves and children can reach them.

If you like the look of an arrangement with holders but would rather not manage real flames, LED taper and pillar candles are made in standard sizes and will sit in ordinary holders.

What to look for in quality

Christmas arrangements are usually seen at close range across a table, so the details show. Things worth checking in photographs and descriptions:

• Foliage material. Moulded PE (polyethylene) pine and fir has rounded, individual needles and looks very close to the real thing. Cheaper PVC needle foliage is cut from flat sheet and looks more like tinsel up close. Many good arrangements mix the two, with PE on the visible tips and PVC filling the body, which is a sensible way to keep the price down.
• A mix of textures. The most convincing arrangements combine several foliage types (pine, cedar, eucalyptus, holly, magnolia leaf) with berries, cones and flowers. A single type of foliage repeated looks flat.
• Flowers. Common choices are poinsettia, amaryllis, hellebore (Christmas rose), rose, hydrangea and ranunculus. Look for petals with some variation in colour and a soft, matt finish rather than a uniform shine. Real-touch poinsettias and roses are noticeably better than standard polyester ones at this distance.
• Berries. Foam berries on wire tend to shed and dent. Harder plastic or coated berries last longer.
• Frost, snow and glitter. These finishes shed, particularly in the first season. If the arrangement is going on a tablecloth or a dark wooden table, consider whether you want to be brushing glitter off it. Lightly frosted tips are usually fine; heavy glitter is a commitment.
• Container. Opaque containers (ceramic, metal, wood, bark) hide the stems and base. Clear glass shows everything inside, so it only works if the arrangement has been finished properly inside the vase, for example with faux water or a deliberate stem arrangement.
• Base weight. Essential with candles, and useful anyway on a table that gets knocked.

Choosing a colour scheme

The arrangement does not have to match the tree, but it does have to sit with what is on the table. Look at your crockery, napkins and tablecloth before choosing, and pick an arrangement that shares at least one colour with them. The usual families are:

• Traditional: deep green with red berries, red flowers and gold. Forgiving and warm, and the easiest to pair with most dinner services.
• White and frosted: white flowers, silvered or frosted foliage, cones. Elegant, and good with white or grey china. Shows dust and glitter more readily.
• Natural: plain greens, cones, bark, dried-look seed heads and cotton, with little or no added colour. Works with rustic and Scandinavian interiors and does not date.
• Blush, copper and champagne: softer and more contemporary. Looks best under warm lighting.
• Jewel tones: burgundy, plum, teal and gold. Rich and dramatic, and suits darker dining rooms.

Lighting changes everything. Red looks richer and white looks warmer under candlelight and warm LEDs; both look harsher under a cool ceiling light. If you can, check the arrangement in the room where it will be used, in the evening.

Assembly: what to expect

Some artificial Christmas arrangements arrive fully made and only need shaping. Others are partly assembled to keep the box size and postage sensible, and need a little putting together. Typically this means:

• Pushing a few larger stems, flower heads or picks into pre-made holes in a foam or plastic base.
• Fitting candle holders or LED candles into their sockets.
• Attaching a ribbon, bow or decorative pick.

None of this needs tools and it rarely takes more than ten or fifteen minutes. Product descriptions will say if assembly is needed. A few tips make the result look better:

• Let it warm up first. Foliage that has been in a cold van is stiff and springs back. Half an hour at room temperature makes it much easier to shape.
• Work from the base of each stem outwards. Separate the branches and bend them in different directions and at slightly different angles rather than fanning them out evenly. Real foliage is not symmetrical.
• Turn the flower heads. Angle them so they face slightly outwards and in different directions, rather than all pointing straight up. Bend a few stems so the heads sit at different heights.
• Step back. Look at it from where people will actually see it, usually seated, and adjust the side that faces the room.
• Shake off any loose frost or glitter over a bin or outside before placing it on the table.

Keeping it looking good, and storing it for next year

Over a few weeks indoors, the arrangement will collect a little dust. A soft paintbrush or a hairdryer on its coolest, lowest setting deals with it. Avoid damp cloths on anything frosted or glittered.

When it goes away in January:

• Remove the batteries from any LED candles so they do not leak over the year.
• Take real candles out and store them flat and cool, separately from the arrangement. Wax softens in a warm loft and will bend or mark the foliage.
• Keep the original box if it fits, or use a lidded box with tissue around the flower heads. Do not stack anything on top of it.
• Store somewhere dry and not subject to extreme heat. A loft that gets very hot in summer can soften and distort plastic foliage; a damp garage can mark fabric petals. A cupboard indoors is ideal if you have the space.

Next year it will need the same five minutes of shaping it had when it first came out of the box.

Before you buy: a quick checklist

• Measured the space it will go in, including depth for mantels and sideboards?
• Under 30cm tall if it is for the dining table?
• Leaves 15–20cm clear either side on the table?
• LED candles: battery type, included or not, timer, warm white?
• Candle holders: what size candle do they take, and is the base heavy enough?
• Front-facing or fully round, to suit where it sits?
• Glitter or frost finish, and are you happy to live with it?
• Does it need assembly, and is that clear in the description?
• Shares a colour with your tableware?

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