Christmas Day

It was a lovely Christmas Day...although, my soup did turn out, my turkey was tough and the matriarch forgot she didn't eat anything but sweets on Christmas Day.  But she was happy with four night gowns from Santa, the children were delighted with clothes and books and my husband didn't get the joke Santa played--a book on the search for truth in the modern world told in comic book form.

My parents came for dinner and they played cards with the children the better part of the afternoon; my father thought the kids would appreciate learning how to play cribbage and they spent most of the afternoon doing just that.  The matriarch kept wanting to play but she could not see the cards and it frustrated the life out of her not offering my father a real challenge.  She used to be quite the card shark in her day.  Of course, she never played to win--at least, that is what she kept saying to me, but one gets the feeling she didn't like losing either.

A quick word about dishes...my good set is Royal Albert "Country Rose."  My husband gave the set, a complete formal setting for 8, to my mother-in-law for Christmas one year.  When she moved in, she gave it to me.  Now, the matriarch also gave me my old good china about twenty years ago.  It was a second hand setting for 12 she bought in 1939; so, my old good dishes are almost 100 years old.  They are beautiful: hand-painted and embossed china rescued from England at the start of World War 2.  My children and their friends have never had a party without them; in the whole of my children's lives, they have never had a party without china.  My friends used to say I was crazy to let the children use the dishes but not once has a piece been broken.  My neighbour's aunt left her a similar set and she gave it to me--so I have the ability to have a formal dinner for 24: soup bowls, bread and dessert plates, main dishes, platters-you name it...except for a missing tea cup. My mother-in-law did not use the dishes when she owned them.  She would get them down for Christmas dinner and put them away straight after.  She told me the stories of carefully boxing them up after each holiday, wrapping each individual plate, cup and saucer in a bit of paper and putting them carefully away.  In all that lack of use, she only broke 1 tea cup.  My kids have had parties where every dish was used; if we ran out of dessert plates, bread plates, dinner plates, we would move on to soup bowls.  No one has broken anything and I tend to think it makes a good family story; even if the dishes get broken, so what?  Better to fall apart from family use than to have no memories of them being used at all.  So this Christmas, I set a formal breakfast table with the old good china and a formal dinner table with the Royal Albert and served courses to match.  The matriarch who couldn't really see either set was so proud to know all her dishes were being used..I think it may have been the highlight of her Christmas.