Thanksgiving is behind us, and now we are headed full blast to Christmas.

It’s time to turn our attention to a lovely table. In my world this means repurposing.

I’m planning my retro Christmas table decor, and this season’s special accents are simple Christmas centerpieces that are lit with fairy battery lights.

It’s easy to find containers to recreate this look at your home. Dig into your display cabinets, closets, and put an eye on your mantle piece for fun containers that will work for your table.  Or head to your nearest tag sale or flea market to see what treasures await you.

Items needed for this project:

• Items from your “collections”, things like the following:
  Candy dishes
  Vintage bowls
  Milk glass finds
  Pretty serving bowl
• 1-2 strings of battery lights (sets with thin wires work nicely but you can reproduce this look with any kind of battery set – you just might have to work harder to hide the wiring)
• Ornaments that fit your color scheme – I’m using shades of red – and they’re plastic which makes me happy with kids in the house.

Here’s my first random centerpiece container. I love this dish for parties. It works great for cookies.

Here’s another great choice:

A cool pyrex salad bowl makes a great third container.

Assembly instruction:

1. Install fresh batteries and lay your battery lights in the bottom of your container.
2. Pour in your ornaments into the bowl. Or or if made of glass, gingerly place them on top of the ornaments.
3. Pull the lights up through the ornaments here and there.
4. Flip the switch and dim the room lights.
5. Enjoy. Preferably with a cup of hot cocoa.

Here’s the entire table.  I can’t wait to have friends over to enjoy it!!

Need a visual explanation of the process?

Here’s a quick video showing how easy it is to add that string of battery lights to a bowl of ornaments!

Oh!!  And here is my little extra tip. Tying gold ribbon bows on the little ornaments makes really cute table setting accents: