Christmas Tableware

Plates, bowls, mugs and platters for Christmas Day

Our Christmas tableware is built around plates, bowls, mugs and serving platters. Plates are the largest group, for the main meal, a starter or the pudding that follows. Bowls take soup, sprouts or trifle, and porridge on Christmas morning. Mugs carry the tea, coffee and hot chocolate that run from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, and serving platters bring the turkey or a pile of mince pies to the table.

Alongside them we stock a few cups, a jug or two and a teapot for an afternoon pot of tea, plus a little cutlery, a few napkins and a couple of table runners to dress the table.

What is stoneware, and why it suits Christmas tableware

Stoneware is clay fired at a higher temperature than earthenware, hot enough for the body to become dense and hard. It is heavier in the hand than porcelain or bone china and sturdy enough for everyday use, which is why it is so often chosen for plates, bowls and mugs in daily service. Most of our Christmas tableware is stoneware, which gives it a reassuring weight on the table through a long, relaxed meal.

Stoneware also holds warmth well. If a plate is listed as oven safe, warming it before serving keeps food hot a little longer, which helps when the carving runs late. A few pieces in the range are dolomite rather than stoneware, and a few are glass, some of it mouth-blown.

Hand-painted, decal and glazed finishes across our Christmas tableware

Part of the range is painted by hand, so the line and depth of colour vary a little from one piece to the next, and a few listings say so outright. Other designs are decals, printed patterns fired onto the surface, and most of these are finished with hand-painted details that give a printed pattern some of the life of brushwork.

Others are finished in glaze, and a few carry a reactive or crackle glaze. A reactive glaze shifts in tone where it pools and thins in the kiln, and a crackle glaze settles into a fine web of lines, so no two of these pieces look quite alike. If you want a table that reads as one set, keep to a single finish; if you like a gathered look, hand-painted and glazed pieces sit happily together.

Which Christmas tableware goes in the dishwasher, microwave and oven

Christmas dinner leaves a mountain of washing-up, so the care rows are worth reading before you buy. Most pieces in the range are listed as dishwasher safe and most as microwave safe, while about half are listed as oven safe. Most are also listed as food safe. The care rows on each product page say which, so check piece by piece rather than assume one answer covers the whole table.

Where a piece is not dishwasher safe, wash it by hand in warm, soapy water with a soft cloth, then dry it straight away. Keep scourers away from painted and decal surfaces, and let hot stoneware cool before it meets cold water, since a sudden change of temperature can crack any ceramic. Warm oven-safe pieces in a low oven rather than a hot one.

Setting plates, bowls, mugs and platters together by colour

Colour is the quickest way to pull a Christmas table together. We stock multi-coloured designs alongside red pieces and brown ones, so you can build the table around a single colour or let patterns mix. Red reads as Christmas straight away. Brown is warmer and quieter, with something of gingerbread about it, and sits well on a wooden table or beside a garland of greenery down the centre.

Start with the plates, since they set the tone, then choose bowls and mugs that share one of their colours. Multi-coloured designs are the busiest, so they look best against a plain cloth or runner, with a quieter serving platter at the centre to rest the eye. Lay the table the night before and you will see at once whether the mix works.

Will it fit? Sizes, sets and capacities across the tableware

Measure before you order. Our widest round pieces are 35cm across and the tallest reach 20.5cm high, so check the depth of the cupboard shelf, the gap between shelves and the space in your dishwasher rack. On the table, leave room between place settings for a serving platter and the dishes passed from hand to hand.

We stock pieces in sets of two and sets of four, with the odd set of three or six, so add up the places you need to lay: eight at the table takes two sets of four or four sets of two. Capacities across the range run from 25ml to 1,606ml. Where a capacity is listed, compare it with a mug or jug you already own by filling it with water and pouring that into a measuring jug.