How to Put a French Spin on Your Christmas at Home

PORTORO Interior offers a few tips on how to add an elegant continental touch to your home as you make it merry and bright for the Season.

While many people have a tendency to view the Holiday Season as a time for opulence and ostentation when it comes to home decorating, our current circumstances – lasting for nearly two years now – have made us and numerous others think of celebrations that are a little more refined and subtle, cozier, and more heartfelt.

This makes the case for adding a hint of restraint to one’s decorating, but this does not mean that Christmas and the New Year should become dull and dowdy affairs. What we suggest is to take a cue from our friends in France when it comes to the art of subtle elegance for the Yuletide Season.

Here are some practical pointers for your consideration:

Softer Colors Add an Elegant Nuance to the Table

Here in the Philippines, Christmas is usually a riot of color: bold and vivid reds and particularly verdant greens. While this for more robust celebrations with a mixed crowd, using softer shades is more appealing when it comes to more intimate gatherings. Likewise, it has been noted that the use of more subtle colors can actually improve conviviality among diners: there aren’t as many visual distractions and people feel encouraged to talk and interact with one another – something we sorely need after so many months in enforced isolation.

In which case, the delicate sage green of our new Imperial Deco Box can add this sophisticated nuance to your Noche Buena or Réveillon table, along with a little warmth to make the feast a truly merry one.

Play Up a Little Bit of Whimsicality

Christmas decorations are where many of us try to express ourselves in the context of the season, but rather than go for the more obvious images of the Holiday like gingerbread people, snowmen, snowflakes, and reindeer, perhaps one can veer more towards a more elegant yet equally whimsical approach.

Porcelain has long been part and parcel of Holiday decorating, but many of us tend to stick to figures of the Holy Family in our respective crèches or novelty plates to be brought out once a year. Our new Christmas Forest Décor will add a new option to your holiday repertoire. Beautifully handcrafted in biscuit [unglazed] porcelain into the forms of acorns and pine cones, these will add a uniquely sylvan touch to your Christmas tree and, even when the Holidays are over, they can do double-duty as elegant objets d’art to add a playful touch to home decorating or as placeholders for your next dinner party.

Add a uniquely sylvan touch to your Christmas tree

“Hanami” Luxury Soy Candle, Christmas Forest Décor

A Little Bit of Gold Helps

Many designers and decorators feel that the metallic spectrum – gold, silver, and copper – tend to be overused during the Holidays, what with the bulk of tinsel and foil used for decorating and even wrapping presents. Why not take a cue from our French amies [friends] in this regard? Adding even a hint of gold to one’s table or a decorative feature in the home is a great way to add a luxurious nuance.

While threading gold ribbons through a swag made of evergreen fronds is the first thing that comes to mind, adding a touch of real gold to your dining table works beautifully. Case in point: our new L’Impératrice Dinner Sets are finished with a fine gold rim applied by hand by master artisans which gives them a delicate yet incredibly refined appearance that makes them the perfect backdrop for sumptuous Holiday fare.

L’Impératrice Dinner Set

Likewise, gold thread stitched or embroidered into decorative linens is another way with which to add a subtly opulent nuance to your festive table and even to small soirées. The newest additions to our expanding linen collection – the Sparkle Table Linens and Sparkle Cocktail Napkin and Coaster Linens – are an excellent way to bring glittering glamour, especially if you are using them to help usher in a new year with family and friends.

“Sparkle” Table Linen

“Sparkle” Cocktail Napkin and Coaster

The pandemic may have changed the way we celebrate our special occasions and holidays, but one thing remains the same: a beautiful home and a well-appointed table go a long way into making even the simplest events and milestones truly memorable.

All items are carefully packed in our elegant PORTORO boxes: premium packaging for an exquisite gift.

Add this to your collection