Have a Five-Element Holiday Dinner

Franca Giuliani - This holiday season, why not be creative and apply feng shui to your dinner table to raise the energy and harmony surrounding entertaining? Based on the 5-element theory, everything - even colors, shapes, and foods - can be translated to one of the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. It's always best to have a balance of these elements in your surroundings, which can even include your holiday dinner table. Here’s how you can apply the elements to your holiday feast.

Aside from the traditional red and green color scheme, which are great representations for fire and wood, respectively, remember to include yellows, blues, and whites. Yellow represents earth, blue represents water, and white represents metal. Yellow flowers in your centerpiece or place settings can be a marvelous way to portray earth. For metal, crisp white napkins or a table cloth can do the trick! Better yet, white round flatware is a double wammy, because round is the shape for metal. Blues or winter blues could be incorporated in serving or accessory dishes and/or pitchers.

Let your menu personify the five elements, too. Here’s a list of the elements and foods they are associated with. You can have so much fun playing with combinations and create some unique dishes that will invite all five elements to your dinner.

Water - seaweed, raw fish, saltwater fish, liquors, beers, soft drinks

Earth - yams, sweet potatoes, taro, rice, desserts

Wood- green vegetables, citrus fruits, bamboo shoots, onions, leeks, garlic, cauliflowers

Fire - dried fruits, shellfish, colorfully-prepared foods, peanuts

Metal - uncooked vegetables (other than green), coffee, natural teas, wine, mutton, honey

The ways to apply the five elements to your holiday dinner are endless. It can be a different way to how you can approach holiday entertaining. Feng shui can even end up being an interesting conversation starter during dinner. Be creative and have fun with it. And most of all, have a very Merry Feng Shui Holiday!

 
Franca Giuliani is a certified feng shui practitioner, energy clearer, and lecturer. She is a graduate of the Feng Shui Alliance School formerly in Edgewater, NJ. Franca also holds a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and a continuing education certificate from NYU. She has studied and continues to study under world-renowned instructors in feng shui, astrology, and energy clearing. She has consulted and lectured within the New York and New Jersey areas, as well as in Italy and England. Franca offers feng shui consultations, astrology readings, energy clearing sessions and organizing services. Visit her web site for more information.

Photo credit: Delish