Do You Use the Good Dishes, etc

This thread made me think of the dishes we had growing up.

Our every day dishes were a collection of hand me downs, souvenir mugs from various day trips, gas station and laundry detergent premiums or glasses from various supermarket products like Armour dried beef or inexpensive brands of jelly.

The silverware was worse, old silver plate worn down to the base metal and a few gas station steak knives that came with a full tank of gas.

but we always had the ‘good’ dishes, silver plate, crystal, and linen tablecloths hidden away for company, holidays, etc…

Why do we tend to treat distant relatives and strangers better than we treat the people closest to us? 🤷‍♀️
 
I never had the money for a “good” set of dishes. And I didn’t inherit any from my folks because I was traveling the world in my youth and back then had no idea where I’d finally land.

After I left my ex and my life normalized, I could finally entertain! But I’m not a formal person, never have been, so I had no need to formally entertain so no need of formal pieces.

On the other hand, I’m a bit OCD about everything matching, so I have a full set of matching tall and short drink ware, a bar cabinet of sets of various cocktail glasses, a drawer of matching flatware and a kitchen cabinet filled with a set of white embossed Gorham bone china all of which we use for both everyday ware and entertaining.
 
We use our best dishes every day. English China and things from Tipperary Crystal here in Ireland. We don’t have anything else, those were were given to charity shops because we were moving house a lot and I thought…” Why have more than one set of table ware?”

A lot of those decisions were made when I realized how much older we were getting and so why not enjoy every last day I have with a lovely table setting.
 
We once got the nice cups and dishes from my aunt. Glad they stayed with my ex, cause I would have let them all be ruined. I used only plastic for years and now I actually still use plastic plates. I love plastic plates. I also have super cheap things that can go in the microwave and nobody cares if one falls cause they're one euro and a few nice plates, bought em a year ago or 2. Not one of them still looks nice.
 
I only have one set, and they were cheap. When I was married we had two sets, one being china for special occasions. My ex took the china in the divorce. I was actually happy about getting stoneware, which I liked better anyway. It's a guy thing. But after 40 years the stoneware got brittle and started chipping and breaking.

Now my dishes come from Walmart, the cheapest ones they have.
 
Jules said:
It’s a sad that our mothers or grandmothers thought so highly of what they collected. It’s just not our style, at least for many of us. And we’re old (speaking for myself). It’s probably good that our granddaughters have no desire to do the same. It saves them money in the long run.
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I find it is the same with furniture.
 
We rarely entertain, and when we had the family stay with us we used paper plates. Our "good dishes" are fancy, deco, gold-leaf ones that we bought in the 90's in Miami so they are probably so out of style, if we actually entertained anyone with taste we would be embarrassed. We use Pier One stoneware for ourselves. Not fancy, nice vibrant solid colors, and they can be cleaned easily.

My mother had a china cabinet full of the fine stuff. When we sold her house, the realtor held an open house to sell things she hadn't taken with her to assisted living. It was a 55+ development and no one was interested in the fine china.

We have a bar that is full of fine glassware and have only touched it if someone comes over for cocktails. A friend that I worked with in the early 2000's mentioned the Hemingway collection at Thomasville and we bought a few pieces 20 years ago. We do love the bar but never use it. I drink my red wine out of a plastic wine glass.

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