Bringing out the Fancy Dishes

You know, I was never one to care about fine china.  Most people I know have fine china and rarely use it and since I like mostly practical items, we didn't register for china when we married.  I inherited some very nice china, but even that isn't used.

I don't care about china, but I do really, really care about my Pottery Barn Reindeer dishes.  I love them!  For the past several years I have gathered quite a collection and I look forward to getting them out each year.  This year Mark didn't even want to get them out, well it wasn't that he didn't want to get them out, but there are two large boxes in the garage attic (which has the highest, steepest ladder by the way) and since we would only use them once or twice during the holidays maybe he thought it was silly to get everything out, wash it, find a place for it.  You know the drill.

As we were unpacking decorations and I was admiring my collection Jack came over and saw the dishes.   He was absolutely thrilled to see them.  Not because he remembered them necessarily, but because he liked the reindeer.  Who doesn't?  Although, he would soon inform me that he didn't like Dasher because he is smoking a cigar.  That is another story though.

So he asks if we can use the dishes.  Not just for Christmas dinner, but for all meals.  "Ummm, no," was my answer I'm sure, but then I paused for a moment.  Why was my answer no?  Because we think that you are only supposed to use the fancy dishes for special days?  Why is that?  Who came up with that rule?  Shouldn't all days be special days?  Granted, I understand some days are certainly a little more special than others, but in general, shouldn't you break out the fancy plates just because?  There is an email floating around about that very thing.  So, in light of all of this years events, I think that all days should be treated as special days and if my precious children think that it is thrilling to use my fancy reindeer plates for their Sunday evening dinner of fish sticks and french fries (oh, yeah you read that correctly), then by all means I think we should use them.  So we are.  Everyday we are using the fancy dishes.  Hey, we even have fancy coasters and fancy napkins.  Although, I will admit I am not using those.  My goodness, I already do enough laundry as it is people.  I don't need to add one more thing to my list.

So, for the month of December I will be hand washing my dishes.  Talk about old school.

What is this you are wondering?  Well, I told you it is a really high and steep ladder and considering the fact that I am short, if one of those tubs or boxes were to slip and hit me in the face, well, let's just say it would hurt.  So being the genius that he is, he came up with a system to get the boxes down without my help.  Yeah for me!  Now, if only he could find a way to get them back up there.