The $29 Ikea hack that will have your guests gushing about your stunning Christmas table for years to come

Whether it's a family or friends get-together, birthday dinner, congratulatory meal or Christmas lunch, it always feels so much more special when the table is decorated for the occasion.

This can be tricky if you're not confident with styling or on a tight budget and mostly need to use what you already have at home.

A new Ikea product not only solves that issue it also makes the occasion feel even more important for a bargain price.

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The $29 Helgeö decorating rod attaches to the ends of a table and can be used inside and out and is extendable to fit tables between 115 cm to 235 cm wide.

The hugely popular product sold out when it first arrived in stores but is back in stock in time for Christmas.

Ikea lead interior designer, Amy Hare, tells 9honey Living that the product is the perfect styling hack for Christmas.

"It's a new product and it's amazing for the cost and what it can bring to your either indoor or outdoor dining is incredible," she says.

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"It is amazing to hang either string lights or the Strala lights or leaf or floral garlands. It just adds that very celebratory atmosphere to any festive meal."

The styling options for the Helgeo rod are endless and can also include paper or dried flowers, fabric, tinsel, fake cobwebs and spiders for Halloween or simply just a couple of lamps for extra lighting.

The Ikea team recently used the product to style one of its own events and just headed outside to collect some gum leaves and branches to decorate the Helgeo rod with.

There is an additional benefit of the product that you may not have considered, which will be especially useful when hosting Christmas lunch as it always seems to result in more things than you expect needing to go on the table.

"At my house there's always so much food, it gives more space for more food on the table [by lifting the decorations up]," Hare says.

One decorating trend you could add to the Helgeo rod (or anywhere, even cupboard doors, according to the images and videos on social media at the moment) is bows using red fabric or red ribbon.

"Having bows on the Christmas tree, having bows on place settings in velvet and satin and a mix of textures. I think that that's kind of whimsical and lovely and a little bit carefree at the moment," Hare says.

To elevate the Christmas table even more, Ikea's modern festive Swedish table setting, which you can see in more detail on its website, is the perfect inspiration.

The table features two tablecloths (or you can use any kind of fabric) placed diagonally on the table so you have two colours as a base rather than just one.

For a hanging centrepiece the table design includes a wreath made with old decorations and spray painted a matte grape colour.

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There were also plenty of nods to nature with moss and sprouted hyacinths (which you'd have to substitute in Australia for another plant given they're out of season).

These plants and greenery were placed in cocktail glasses, domes and vases and were elevated with fairy lights inside.

Gingerbread house biscuits with labels were used as place settings and napkins were decorated with eucalyptus sprigs.

And for the ultimate entertaining hack, a Raskog trolley in a coordinating colour was used to hold drinks in an ice bucket, extra glasses and napkins.

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