It is advisable to set the Christmas Dinner Table the night before Christmas, before you head to bed. So here's the no fools, professional quality guide to set up the Christmas Dinner Table. To set up the table, here how to do it in the most beautiful way.

1) Be sure your dining table and chairs are clean. You don't want dusty table and chairs to eat from at Christmas. Neither does Santa Claus when he has his snack on Christmas Eve.

2) when you clean up table, it is time to put the Christmas colours on the table itself, starting with a beautiful Christmas red tablecloth. I advise you to find a red tablecloth that has either holly, or reindeers on a silver edging on it.

3) one you smooth the tablecloth, in the middle of the table, place a red and green tartan plaid table runner for your Christmas centrepiece. This will make it a bit more christmassy.

4) this is optional but, to match the table runner, chair cushions of the same colour as the runner. To really get festive feel to the chairs. This is great if you wish to coordinate your chair cushions with your desired table colour scheme.

5) now, the tablecloth and the runner are in place, you can place the centrepiece, I went for the poinsettia, berries, pine cone and fir artificial foliage table centerpiece to give off the traditional Christmas feel. But also it looks beautiful doesn't it?

6) now to set the plates and crockery on the table now.... Since it is Christmas, opt for red plate dinner sets. As it is to also match with the colours you chosen for your table and Christmas tree.

7) once you have set the plates in the right way like shown above, set the cutlery in the right way, this setting of the cutlery beside a plates is taken from a website called https:/www.mydrap.com.

The fork must be placed on the left of the plate. We place firstly the one that is closest to the plate (which is the last one we use) and then the others to its left, so that the first fork to use must be the one that is furthest from the plate.

The knives are placed to the right of the plate. They should be placed with the cutting edge facing the plate and in the same order as the forks (the first one we use is the furthest from the plate).

The spoon or spoons are placed to the right of the plate and the right of the knives. Once again, the spoon furthest from the plate is the first one we should use.

The dessert cutlery is placed in the part above the plate: the spoon and knife with handle towards the right and the fork with the handle to the left.

For younger diners it is best to place only a fork and a spoon.

Here's how it should look below.

8) drinks glasses and champagne flutes come next. Place them on the soup spoon and knife side. Look again at the example above, to see what I mean here.

9) on top of the plates, place red napkins neatly folded. Be sure they are Christmas napkins. As it is the festive season.

10) crackers are a must at the festive season, this means it is tradition to pull Christmas crackers at the Christmas Dinner Table.

this is what the finished dining table would look like on completion. You could add the candles as a nice touch.

In the next part of chapter 2, this is optional but if you want the kids to be creative, they can decorate their room for Christmas.