HOW TO FOLD FESTIVE NAPKINS
Magazine’s step-by-step guide will help you add creative flair to your Christmas table and impress your guests
Given the number of rooms in the castle, we have to make practical choices about which ones we’ll decorate. We’ve also found it’s better to have a theme so it all hangs together.
The saloon at Highclere is the heart of the house and its sheer size dictates that it is the location for the main Christmas tree, while a smaller one goes in the library.
Candles are scattered throughout the castle and garlands are wound around mantelpieces, the table is set, clusters of poinsettias are positioned on the tables in the gallery, and holly is trimmed and put in rows of vases. As the Christmas cards arrive they are set on the grand piano, on tables, or — adopting my mother’s tradition — hung on lengths of ribbon and strung up around the bookshelves.
Happily wrapped in a scarf and coat, with a bevy of dogs running around, I usually set out on 2 December, the day after the main tree is erected, in search of foliage and berries that can provide texture and colour for our Christmas public opening.
Highclere’s winter garden, fields and hedgerows offer an abundance of choice — I normally collect a good haul of evergreen winter box, cornus, viburnum, dogwood and unpruned hydrangea heads, along with pine cones and stems of long grasses. Holly is lovely too but the berries are poisonous for humans — as well as pets — so it’s unsuitable for table decorations.
As children, my sisters and I would spray paint long broken twigs gold and silver, making a terrible mess. Nevertheless, they can look rather good and can be used to hang baubles on, while moss will disguise the trappings needed to hold them upright.
Anything I find that is wet from the weather can be stored in the beaters’ room or the old garages to dry until needed.
Ivy covers the remains of an old church to the west side of the house and it looks fabulous when mixed with yew sprigs to create a dark background for our arrangements on mantelpieces and staircases.
Globes of mistletoe hang in profusion on the west side of the castle, too. They are usually tantalisingly out of reach but I have found that if I clamber onto the bonnet of a high 4x4 car I can, in fact, reach some of it. My son, Edward, worried for my wellbeing, kindly asks me to ensure that some