A few days ago David helped Mother / Martha / “Martie” move into a garden home (oh, the stories. THE STORIES.), and when he made it back to our house Sunday afternoon, he walked in the front door with a special treat.
GIN!
Oh, I kid. Kiddy McKidderson Kid.
Because do you know what’s really inside that box?
CHINA!
I know that might not seem very exciting to a lot of people, but let me tell you: I am such a fan of pretty dishes. Apparently I inherited the loves-pretty-dishes gene from my mama, and I have been crazy about china since I was in high school. It makes me laugh that I can be so sentimental about, you know, PLATES, but I totally am. I remember all the dishes my mama has ever owned, and if I ever happen to run across a full set of the everyday pattern that she used when I was a little girl, I’ll probably cry just a little bit.
Now I feel like I should go hide. Perhaps I’ve overshared.
Anyway.
Since Martha’s new house doesn’t have quite as much storage space as her old one, she was very sweet to give me 12 place settings of a china pattern that David’s daddy bought when he was stationed overseas back in the 50s. I can’t even tell you how much I will treasure it. The pattern is Noritake LaSalle, and I LOVE IT. It’s so different than anything else I have – I think it’s delicate and retro and modern all at the same time.
By the way, I’m pretty sure that you’re officially a grown-up when you enthusiastically snap a picture of a covered vegetable bowl.
But DID YOU NOTICE THAT FUNKY HANDLE? ISN’T THAT THE GREATEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN?
It took me all of five minutes before I started trying to figure out how I could mix the new-to-me pattern with dishes I already have. My fine china is Lenox Eternal, and I love how it looks with the LaSalle salad plate. I think they’ll look sassy on top of some charger plates I bought a few years ago at Old Time Pottery – they were a whopping $1.50 a piece, I think.
Won’t they all be so purty together on Christmas day? Is it wrong that thinking about all the mix-and-match china makes me a smidge giddy? Do I need to go hide again?
Maybe I need to go hide again.
I love the cups and saucers, too – even if the cup will only hold about two tablespoons of coffee. Because those two tablespoons of coffee will look fab next to that kicky handle, now won’t they?
So what about y’all? Do you use your “good” dishes on Christmas day? Do you have a favorite Christmas pattern? Do you like to mix and match the dishes you have? Or do you save yourself the headache of having to wash a bunch of dishes and just break out the paper stuff instead?
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We live overseas right now, and I put all my good china in storage in the US before moving. Now, one of the reasons I kind of want to move back to the US is to get it out.
If that’s not a strange (ok, possibly stupid) reason for a relo, I don’t know what is.
And, no, I don’t think you’re over the top about china at all. The handles are awesome. Take pics – use it all! My grandmother thought the reason women outlive men was getting up after the big holiday meal to do all those dishes. So, in using them, you’re actually contributing to your health (and that of all the people you make help you clean up)!
My Pfaltzgraff Christmas pattern that I was working on got discontinued after three years. Go figure. I do have a set of candlewick china passed down from my mom. If you know candlewick, it is clear. I sometimes use it even though she claims it is worth a small fortune and I am rather ungraceful.
I love looking at china patterns. I love looking at yours!
I also have Lenox Eternal! The reason I chose it 10 years ago was just so I could mix and match it! I usually do just what you have done. Use the Eternal dinner plate with a Christmas salad plate. Or something else that just looks pretty.
I like to mix and match or change it up a bit myself.
I don’t really love my “fine china” like I did when I picked it out 26 years ago. Funny how your taste can change with maturity.
Anyway. I use two different kinds of dishes together or separate depending on my mood.
Sophie, you are just darling. I also love the china/glassware, and I got that gene from my gramma. She had a china cabinet that was jaw dropping. I LOVE the retro, delicate, hip china you’ve been given – what a great gift and treat. Have a blast working it in. It looks great with your china. I’m a little bit jealous!
Sophie! My dad brought the EXACT SAME dishes back from Korea when he was in the Navy!! I can’t tell you how many Thanksgiving and Christmas meals I have eaten on these over the years -they are sitting in my parents china cabinet right now. Your Lenox Eternal looks great with them, and I have the same chargers, too. You have GREAT taste! LOL
My mum always used the China on Christmas Day. We didn’t use it very often, but I always enjoyed our big, fancy Christmas dinner.
LOVE the funky handle on the covered vegetable bowl! I love china too. Someday I’m going to have a “China Room”, just so I can display cool pieces.
I LOVE DISHES!! I currently have five sets of dishes, three “everyday” and two “china”. For the big functions I use one of the everyday sets so it can go in the dishwasher but when we just have a few people over, I love using the china, especially my Grandmothers. It makes me happy to remember all of the times we ate dinner at her house on her lovely china.
Congratulations on your “new” set and enjoy it!!
Lots of us gals love china! That is a beautiful gift and should be a lot of fun to play with. Did you know that Southern Lady magazine often has articles that are ALL ABOUT mixing and matching pieces of china and linens and centerpieces to come up with new looks? Have fun!
When we got married, I chose Mikasa china that I could use everyday. We still do, after 18 years!
To mix things up, I bought some red and silver chargers (at the Big Lots for $1.50 per!) that we’ll use on Christmas Eve. Can’t wait!
Love the funky handles. Can’t do better than funky handles.
I.LOVE.CHINA.
It’s a sickness really. I have four sets of dishes, plus lots of misc. pieces that just catch my eye at thrift shops and yard osales.
I got my fine china set at a yard sale for $25!!! It was the bargain of the century. My husband wanted me to take it back! He said, “I don’t think the lady knew what she had!”
I said, “Honey, yes she did. She told me she never used it anymore, and she was glad it was going to someone who could use it.”
I told her I’d cherish it forever.
My husband even made me call an elder from our church and ask if it was OK to keep it! haha She said, “Did you ask her to take less money than she was asking?” I said, “No”
She said, “Then I think it’s fine that you keep it.
Great story I love to tell!
Oh, and I love to set a formal table! It was quite a shock a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving at my cousin’s house….she served us on Chinet paper plates! ;)
But it was all good, cause I was with my beloved family!
Amy
WOW! We were stationed in Japan and Noritake is great stuff :-)
My mother in law gave me her china a few years ago and we plan on using it this year at Christmas since we are going to be in our own home. I can’t wait!! It is a very simple pattern but I think that is why I love it. It’s beautiful in its simplicity!!
Oh, and my daughter is almost 18 but started buying her first pieces of China at 16.. she has her own unique style and loves any china that is torquoise blue :-)
Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Hello. My name is Lysa. I am a dish addict. Seriously. I LOVE china. Mostly I’m a paper plate gal. But, on Christmas it’s all things, all meals, on China.
Love your new/old set.
Gorgeous!!!
I may lose my Southern heritage after admitting this BUT I use the best and finest Chinette plates that they have to offer.
LOVE those! I say whenever possible, use the china! Life is too short not to enjoy your beautiful things. Enjoy your fabulous new plates!
Sadly, 4 years ago my Grandmother’s china was stolen!
I lived in an apartment building with LOCKED storage in the basement. I sold my china hutch (long story) and thought my china and other items would be safe in my locked storage (I lived in a one bedroom apt with zero storage). Sadly, a bolt cutter was all that was needed! I was so upset and they were never found.
However, that aside, I am tickled that you got a wonderful set of dishes! And I agree–that lid handle is awesome!!
I LOVE dishes. I know just how you feel! If I had the chance, I’d fill a whole room w/ different patterns of china and use a new one every day! What is that about? I get emotional too, when I see things Mom had. I use Lenox Holiday at Christmas (and all during the year) It’s fun to mix and match stuff with everything. Merry Christmas!
Oh my, LaSalle is beautiful, just beautiful. I share your delight in pretty dishes.
I have Lenox Eternal and love to mix and match with my grandmother’s china. Usually the *good* only came out on holidays and special occasions; but I recently found out one set that my grandmother had given me was named Queen Esther, I moved some pieces to the everyday dishes cabinets. The teens and I have done Beth Moore’s Esther study and I just can’t resist handing them a fruit cup and saying to them, “You were born for such a time as this.”
Oh, I’d love to sit at your table and have a few tablespoons from the lovely little cup.
Oh my! I didn’t realize that there was a “loves pretty dishes” gene! And I have it!!
A few years ago, my mom bought some Christmas dishes for us and I LOVE them! They’re not fancy, just a “store brand” but I love that because I feel like we can use them every day and put them in the dishwasher. She bought me another set this year, with a different pattern, which I was ECSTATIC about because I can now mix and match!!
I also purposely picked white-on-white wedding china so I could mix and match it with anything. AND I DO! And I pull it out and use it at the slightest provocation.
OK, I’m done with this long comment!
Merry Christmas!!
Wonderful! I too have a passion for dishes and recently added a set from my grandmother. It wasn’t her “good” china, as we never were allowed to use her “good” china, strange I know. But this is the set we always used, so I’m so excited to add it to my collection. I have 6 different sets of dishes!
I too inherited the china gene – from my mother and somehow from my mother-in-law too! I am just starting a collection of Spode Christmas Tree China and I am in love.
I love your new plates! We have a set of Spode Holiday Rose that we will use on Christmas Day. I also have 2 sets of ‘every day Christmas china’ that we use from Thanksgiving until New Years. I let my children pick which one we use each year. (We also have 2 sets of year-round everyday plates.)
And, I’ve always loved that my grandmother started giving me sterling serving pieces of different patterns when I was little. I think it makes my table look so interesting to have the different patterns.
Merry, merry!
My mom has Lenox Eternal and uses it with her Christmas china each year. I do not have fine china, so I, at this point in my life, do not set a pretty table.
I love the gift you received and the pattern of the china. What a special gift!
Fellow China Lover,
China addiction is less detrimental to ones health than MOST other vices. Indulge. I like your mix/match pairing. The handles are DIVINE!
I only own 4 sets of china but have about 6 more over which I lust… If you ever get a chance to visit the Replacements Limited location in NC. Take it – its like disney world for china lovers only better!
I have to admit….I love me some dishes! I would rather have a new set of china/dishes than jewelry, etc.
However, I knew I was getting old when I found my “everyday” wedding china in a little antique shop a couple of years ago!!
I’m still hanging on to it…..Harper might find it groovey someday!!!
Have a Merry Christmas, Sophie!
I love this post and your new dishes! I come from a long line of women who love dishes. My own grandmother has sets of dishes under every bed in her house because she ran out of storage space decades ago. It’s a longstanding metaphor for the “heritage” we all claim. Enjoy using your new dishes on Christmas Day!
I love your new china!
My mother gave me the complete set of Nikko christmas dishes with the provision that I host Christmas dinner every year. Which I do. I love having my family at my house and I can’t wait to get them out every year.
I love dishes too. I inherited that from my mom who inherited it from her mom. Anyway, I have mix and match Christmas dishes for Christmas time. I LOVE them, just as much as I love my fiestaware and my Johnson Brothers red dishes!
Love, love, love dishes as well. I have two china patterns – one was my mom’s and one was my grandmother’s. I’ve been looking for several years for a Christmas pattern that I like and the closest thing I’ve come to liking is Pfaltzgraff’s Winterberry. I’d buy that except my mom has the whole set and I’ll probably end up with it one day! (Not wishing that would be any time soon, just being realistic!!)
So what to do? Since I don’t cook on Christmas (I’m always at Mom’s using her Winterberry china!)…I don’t guess I really NEED Christmas dishes yet. Maybe when my grandkids come along and they are all coming to my house for Christmas then I’ll borrow that Winterberry set. But for now, I’ll just go to Mom’s and admire it!
Very beautiful!!!! :)
You have probably already heard of this place, but there is a warehouse and a website called replacements.com that has hundreds of thousands of china patterns. You can look for your Mommas dishes there, or if you are missing a piece from one of your sets you can surely find it! Give it a look…as a “dishy” you won’t be disappointed :o)
I’m reminded of the time a certain person showed another person the pictures of her wreath and that person laughed and said, “Umm, how old are we when we’re whipping out pictures of our wreaths?!!”
I too have that china-loving gene. It goes way back in the women of my family as evidenced by all the different patterns of china, everyday, and serving dishes we all have. When I was a teenager, I just didn’t get it when my mom and grandmother would Oooh and Aaahh over dishes. I though it was stupid (slap my hand), but that gene kicked into high gear for me in my early 20′s and hasn’t quit yet. It’s fun!! And that china pattern you received is just fabulous! And the fact that you can pair it with some you already have is even more fabulous!
When my dad was in Japan during Vietnam, he bought his mom a 12 place set of Noritake china, an elegant set with platinum edges and small tone on tone flowers around the edge. When my mom bought her pots and pans (which she still uses, by the way) she got a free 8 place set of funky 70′s china (think geometric flowers in shades of orange, yellow, and baby blue.) Sometime before I can remember, my mom and grandma switched sets because grandma didn’t entertain as much anymore. Then, when I got married, grandma gave me “her” china. We call it grandma’s china and revere it like it is, but it really is just funky 70′s china.
Your new china is beautiful! I also have a thing for dishes. If I had a the room and lots of extra money I would have a set for every day of the week. When we lived in NJ I would go to the Lenox warehouse. Over the 5 years we lived there I was able to get 12 place settings of Lenox holiday china! It makes me happy every year to use those. Enjoy your china!
Oh, I love them! What a flexible pattern! I think they look great with the holiday plates. Its such a shame the handles and styles such as these are no longer made
Oh, how I love china! My fine china was picked out by my British grandmother who said “You are getting this pattern because of the shape of the tea cup since it will keep tea warmer longer.” Good thing I liked it too! Who would have ever thought something like that was so important! She has taught me so much and so proud of my heritage and all the things she has taught me about having “nice” things.
“perhaps I have overshared” – you crack me up! Love this post – I have a dish/china addiction too. I have a weakness for salad/dessert plates in different patterns. Because you never know when you might host a little luncheon or something and need A LOT of little plates. :)
Love that china! I also enjoy “fancy dishes” having fall/winter china and spring/summer china. I also have Christmas china and have started another Christmas pattern for my daughter who just turned 13. I started giving it to her when she was 5 years old – cause that’s what kindergarteners need, right?
By the way, not long after I married I got a job as a bridal consultant at a local department store. In the interview I impressed the mangager by naming several brands and patterns of china in casual conversation. I was fresh off of the year long study of china patterns to select the bridal china and a lot of that information became useful after all. Turns out that I was the only one who could inventory the china store room without using a catalog to look up pictures. Some have the gift of healing, some have the gift of ministry, and then there’s me.
I love dishes! So much so,I need to be in a 12 step program. I love to mix, and I have the Night Before Christmas China, which has a line of the poem on each one! I think everyone should have at least 1 set for each season. I am working on finding a summer set right now with bees on it or something! Love your Blog, its like porn for dish lovers! Candy
I guess I am offically an adult then, b/c when I got the picture I gasped and said Oh, that’s Pretty!! (all to myself, in my little work cubicle)
Its goregous! I grew up using paper plates, until I visited a friend one time from college. Her mom said “Yeah! Lets use the good plates” and broke out the china. I remember to this day how honored I felt.
So yes, when we have family over for holidays we use the good stuff…even the kids. :)
Oh you have no idea how much I love dishes- I use my good china on Sundays for dinner- Wedgewood Clio- starting the day after Thanksgiving I get out my Christmas dishes (Spode Christmas Tree)- now I’m on to collecing the Spode Woodland Hunting Dog collection for fall and Thanksgiving. If I ever get a house with a butler pantry, or we get rid of a child via higher learning, I’m totally upping the ante on my dish obsession- I feel an spring/Easter pattern coming on.
We are twin souls, sister! I love nice china. Last time we were in the US, my husband’s parents gave us a Noritake 12 piece china set…COMPLETE!…that Donn’s great aunt bought in occupied Japan during WWII when she was secretary to General MacArthur. It’s very cool. Of course we left it in storage. But my wedding china is Royal Doulton and I brought it to Africa with me. After all, what’s the good of having it if you don’t use it? And yes, we use the good stuff on special occasions.
I think there needs to be a support group for people like you and I. I LOVE china. I cried a little when I finally received my 12th place setting as a wedding gift. How special that you can mix and match with so many different pieces!
Dishes. Sigh. If you’re still in hiding, I’m right there with you. Up in the attic where I have to store my four sets of china. I frequently climb those attic stairs to pull a set out, or sometimes just to visit them up there. The 5th set is my Fiestaware that we use every day, which I love, love, love too and often mix it with the others. In thinking of a Christmas present for me, my husband asked me if I would rather have the matching canisters or the matching Christmas dishes. What? I told him that was like asking if I wanted a left shoe or a right shoe. The answer is YES.
spode christmas china!
on sale every july (my birthday) and i never have enough :)
plus noritake from mother-in-law (chrysanthemums in orange and silver, stunning)
wedgewood from my grandma along with her fostoria
we are addicts, yes, but i proudly USE these dishes so my girls will have the same sweet memories you do, and hopefully treasure these dishes as their own some day.
Oh, you speak my love language. I love a beautiful dish. Those are gorgeous. The handles totally make that vegetable bowl.
My mom has Christmas china that we use every year at her house. This year I got some fun plates that are red and white with snowflakes on them. They aren’t expensive, but are simple and modern. Kinda like a country Christmas vibe. I LOVE them.
Have a Merry Christmas Sophie. Enjoy the china.
Oh My these are BEautiful!!! I love china too! My China is cheap because I splurged and registerd for very expensive every day dishes. SO I felt registering for cheap china was in order. I’m hoping to inherit lots of beautiful china from my grandmother though, she has many sets! I’ve never used my china, it’s still in storage until I can buy a bigger house one day.. what a waste.
Oh I am so so so so so glad that I have met my new sisters in spirit! (I feel like we are all kindred spirits) All of us that share this love and addiction for pretty things. My Nana blessed me with her beautiful china set that she used every single Sunday and every Holiday (even by us grandkids). Such memories! Some pieces have a few chips here and there, but that’s because they were well loved.
Now I serve my Sunday dinners on them and use them every chance I get. I mix and match them with depression glass pieces that I also collect. My prized pieces are little luncheon plates (with the circle on the plate to place your tea cup).
Thanks for giving us a place to share our wonderful addiction!!
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