Or even grocery store gladioli, all the same color, would do. A big vase full of one thing just does fine for me. I now put out a silver bowl of green apples and call that lovely. And it is. Follow that with the opulence of chocolate, however you fix it best, or cream, whether custard or iced, and you have treated your friends to the ne plus ultra, unadorned, sumptuous simplicity.
Holidays are another matter.
It never works. Each year I promise myself to practice in holiday times what I preach in others. Simplify, simplify, simplify, but I myself get caught up in that hope that this year all will be perfect, the table will be just as it was when I was a child, that the dressing will not just be dressing, but the Platonic dressing, one that captures the essence of giving thanks and sharing. And for Christmas I expect that the turkey will be golden, the children all settled in their lives and happy with the gifts I've chosen. I guess, somewhere in my heart, I even expect my mother, long dead, to be at her place at the table.