I've always done that with whatever kind of container, basket, or bowl I can unearth from the basement - occasionally have even used the clear plastic containers baked goods come in. When I buy my wreaths from the farmers market, they'll usually give me an assortment of their evergreen trimmings; if I need to augment that, I have a variety of yews, spruce, junipers, mugos etc. in my own yard. A block of floral foam and a new supply of candles from a craft store and I'm good to go. The floral foam holds a lot of water, so a live arrangement will generally hold its needles until I'm tired of looking at it sometime around mid-January.

If you've ever been to, or have seen books on Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg, they do simply stunning extremely simple table decorations with fruit (mainly apples and oranges) and a little greenery.

Last year I went to Safeway and geot a bunch of reddish/orange roses (I think the whole bunch cost $15) and some pepper berries. I put some wet oasis in a crystal/glass bowl and arranged the flowers/pepper berries (I cut the stems real short). I put the bowl on top of a retagular table mirror w/votive candle around the bowl. It looked really pretty and I already had everything but the flowers (and oasis). You can do the sane thing w/apples/pomegranates/pears (put wood skewer stick into them to stick into the oasis and you could add boxwood, or other greens. Hope this helps!

Another idea is to get a tall glass urn shape or hurricane and gently stack silver and gold or red and green Christmas ornaments inside and place some pine cones or evergreen sprigs on the table near the glass base.

I just did mine last night. I used a round glass vase and filled with shades of solid green and green/blue glass ball ornaments. It looks very pretty and so easy and CHEAP! The hard part was choosing which ornaments to buy.

Could also use cranberries and limes in a glass vessel, either with or without flowers.

There is a florist near me (called Beneva) that has lots of pics on their website. I also like to look at The Knot. It's a wedding site but there are lots of fabulous designs for centerpieces.

http://www.ndi.com