You don’t need a long farmhouse table and fourteen chairs. People remember the food, the company and whether they had somewhere comfortable to sit. Eight people around one table in a small apartment can feel more like a feast than a big formal dining room ever does.

Here’s how to make it work, in five parts.

1. Choose the table

Dinner happens wherever the biggest flat surface is.

  • A 6-foot folding table (on Amazon). Seats six, or eight with one person at each end. Put a floor-length tablecloth over it and nobody will think about what’s underneath.
  • The kitchen island. Stools on both sides seat four to six.
  • Two tables pushed together. A desk or card table against the end of your regular table, with one long cloth over both, seats eight.

Measure ahead of time. Each person needs about 24 inches along the edge of the table, and there needs to be about 36 inches behind the chairs so people can get up. A 6-foot table is 72 inches: three people per side, exactly.

2. Work out the seating

The table is easy; eight chairs is the hard part. Don’t try to match.

Two weeks before, ask everyone in the group chat to bring a chair. A mix of chairs around a clothed table looks fine. A bench is even better: a 42-inch bench seats two people in the space of one chair, and squeezing onto a bench feels festive rather than cramped.

For extra seats, backless stools tuck under the table, and floor cushions work for kids. Give the real chairs with backs to older guests and anyone with a sore back.

3. Plan around the oven

The turkey takes up the oven for most of the day, so plan everything else around it.

Cook the turkey in the morning. A 12 to 14-pound bird needs about 3 to 3.5 hours at 325°F, then 30 to 45 minutes to rest under foil before carving. That rest is when the oven is free for the stuffing, casseroles and rolls. The rolls go in last, at the highest temperature, for about 10 minutes.

Take as much as you can out of the oven entirely. Mashed potatoes on the stove; vegetables in a toaster oven if you have one; mac and cheese, potatoes or mulled cider in a slow cooker. Bake the pie the day before. Pie is just as good on the second day.

4. Serve in rounds

A buffet line needs space you don’t have. Serve family-style in three rounds instead:

  1. While the turkey rests: a cheese board, olives and something pickled on the coffee table, so early arrivals have something to eat and stay out of the kitchen.
  2. Dinner: turkey, sides and gravy on the table together, passed around.
  3. Dessert: only after the dinner plates have been cleared.

The table never gets buried under a dozen dishes, and you get a natural break to clear and catch your breath. You don’t need a second set of plates either: wash the appetizer plates during dinner and use them for pie. Recruit one helpful guest for the ten-minute wash-up.

5. Set the table

A floor-length tablecloth does more than anything else. It hides whatever the table really is and makes it look formal. Add a simple runner (on Amazon) down the middle.

For the centerpiece, three or four small pumpkins and gourds, a few sprigs of grocery store eucalyptus and two or three taper candles (on Amazon). Keep it under 10 inches tall so people can see each other.

Turn the overhead lights off and use lamps and candles. Warm, low light makes a small room feel cozy instead of cramped. String lights (on Amazon) along a bookshelf or window help too.