Borrowed Beauties

As holiday dinner parties grow—your daughter brings home her college roommate, your sister and brother-in-law decide to make the trip East this year—so does the need for extra seating at the table. When you’ve used all the dining chairs, don’t hesitate to borrow seating from the other rooms of the house. As for seat heights, there’ll be some discrepancies, but with the mood festive, few will mind. (For those curmudgeonly types there’s always the telephone book, if you still keep one around, to give a boost.) And don’t worry that the chairs don’t match. Once you’re all gathered around the table no one will notice. In fact, you’ll probably want to give a little extra thanks that the gangs all there.