Thoughts on China and Crystal

Where to begin? I'll begin with the oldest item, this cup and saucer. It belonged to my grandfather Robinson. I recall my grandmother told me it was his favorite cup and saucer. The cup fell and broke a few years ago, and I glued it (rather badly). I've kept it for sentimental reasons ...

... but now we are moving again, into a smaller house, and I ABSOLUTELY MUST DOWNSIZE. 

It's time!

I'm sorting through boxes of china and crystal, hunting for things to get rid of.

So last night I threw away that cup. I kept the saucer :)

Here' the pattern.

My first priority was to sort through my wedding crystal, now 26 years old and most of it never, ever used. It's Gorham Andante. I had a dozen iced tea stems and a dozen water stems. 

Here's one water glass that has a big crack in it. See? I'll toss it in the trash today sometime. It's hard to toss a crystal glass into the garbage can, especially when it cracked from being moved around for 26 years ... not from being used and enjoyed. Sigh. I don't have room for the boxes anymore. I'm tired of lugging them around. I want to sell them. Anybody want to buy some lovely stemware?

Before you rail against me regarding my fear of using my fine crystal that cost $16 per stem, allow me to tell you the story of my everyday china. It's Villeroy and Boch, Manoir. Adam wanted plain dishes for everyday. He didn't like discovering painted plants or birds beneath his dinner toward the end of the meal. I started with a full complement of twelve salads, twelve dinner plates (and many other items). The salad plates were a nice size for lunch servings when the children were young.

What that means is that Peter ate many lunches on these plates, and eventually I was down to only FIVE salad plates. That's when I put them away until he left for college. Haha! Yesterday, I pulled them back out again. Why not? I've changed a lot. Who cares now? If we break the rest of them, they'll have been used for their purpose -- everyday abuse use.

For those still reading, now we come to my fine china, Rosemeade by Mikasa.

Digging through boxes I discovered soup bowls. A china soup bowl is a slightly unusual gift to receive for one's wedding. I was given a dozen each of dinner and salad plates (plus a few other items), but only five soup bowls.

I've never used them. 26 years of living in a box.

And I really like soup bowls! Do you know that they are quite handy for all kinds of foods? 

I often have two or three soup bowls from thrift stores, just for eating leftover pasta or chicken/rice for lunch.

I even found four -- all four! -- soup bowls I bought in Poland in 1987. I thought I'd broken them all.

There they are! And I don't remember this soup bowl. Opening china boxes is rather like Christmas that way.

I decided to eat my breakfast in that bowl this morning. Soup bowls offer a nice flat surface on which to set foods (or egg cups), with lots of space for food, with a slight inclined edge to keep food from slipping off your plate. 

They're excellent for carrying food from one place to another, with slippery foods (like pasta) that might slide off a plate.

So ... now I keep a stack of soup bowls. Let's see if the family rebels against this. 

For now, I'm keeping the fine china, hoping to use it more often when I have more kitchen cabinet space to store it in.

 (Our next house has lots of kitchen cabinets, but almost no closet space.)

I may reduce to only 6 or 8 place settings, instead of twelve. 

What are your thoughts on china and crystal, especially those of you in your 40s or 50s? 

Keep? Use? Sell? Give away?

Do  you find that your daughters are interested in your old stuff?

Anna guffawed at the idea of people giving china and crystal (and silver even!) as wedding gifts. She asked, "Was that a Southern thing?" Heehee. Although even she will confess that we use our teapots and fine cups/saucers all the time. 

Do you still have your crystal or china? Do you use it?

Do you want to get rid of it but don't know how?