Decorating your home for Christmas can be fraught with problems. Go over the top and the whole thing is ruined. Try too hard and it ends up a confused mess.

Don’t worry, though, Glen and Richard of Setting the Scene with Flowers, the creative florists in York’s Bishopthorpe Road area, have created a look especially for Living readers, to give you inspiration.

“We live in a cottage so I have gone for a traditional look with holly, ivy berries and natural foliage,” says Glen of his fabulous decorations.

He says fruit is also part of the arrangement and choosing the right candles is important.

“I’ve used green, which picks out the lime green table runner, and to follow the theme there are apples in the arrangement and green ribbons on the cracker.”

It’s not a real cracker, though. New for this year, it has a false base containing oasis which allows you to produce a floral arrangement to give your guests as a present.

For inspiration, Glen often uses colours that pick out the dinner service or heirlooms. And, he says, decoration shouldn’t just be constrained to the dinner table and tree.

“The hallway is the first thing you see inside the house. It wants garlanding and for ours I used a modern twist because it is a light setting with white walls.”

But it’s the door wreath that welcomes you into the home and Glen’s are fabulous; all moss, holly, pine, nuts and berries.

He even adds fresh fruit and finishes it all off with luxury ribbons and raffia.

Important though decorations may be, Glen says there has to be more than style over substance.

“Christmas has to be fun and I like to have fun with the arrangements. It is hard work, though, and by Christmas Eve you do get to a point where we’ve done everyone else’s and there’s still our own to do.

“Indeed one year ,we didn’t bother and had egg and chips for dinner. On another I went home and found that Richard had sold the tree."

• Still need more help? Setting the Scene with Flowers are on hand to solve your design headaches and after a quick consultation, you too could be sitting down to a table as good as theirs. Setting the Scene with Flowers 1a Vine Street YO23 1BB 01904 670598