Red

Red table settings for Christmas, Valentine's Day and birthdays — plastic dinnerware sets for 25, red-rim dessert plates, heavyweight cutlery sets, heart-print paper plates, a paper party kit, wrapping paper and a magnetic ribbon keepsake box. Counts reach 400 pieces, priced $24 to $69.

Which reds work together on one table?

Keep to one family. A cool, slightly blue red sits with silver, white and green and is the Christmas direction; a warm orange-leaning red sits with gold and cream. Mixing the two makes both look wrong even though each is fine alone. The simplest safe route is one red item against white or clear, with gold or green doing the second colour.

What works for a Christmas table versus Valentine's?

For Christmas, the red and white and the red, green and gold cutlery sets carry the date without a printed motif, so they also serve a general winter dinner. For Valentine's, the heart doodle paper plates and the keepsake box are specific to it. A plain red-rim clear dessert plate is the one piece that genuinely covers both.

Are red plastic plates and cutlery reusable?

The heavyweight plastic cutlery and the rimmed plates will survive a hand wash and a second use, and many people keep them for a following year. They are not dishwasher safe — a hot cycle warps thin plastic and can lift a printed rim. Wash in warm water, dry flat and store stacked rather than loose in a box where rims chip.