I would be perfectly happy to eat off paper plates and use paper napkins for the rest of my life--throwing everything away after each meal and avoiding ever having to load or unload the dishwasher.
(I rarely load or unload the dishwasher, but that's not the point.)
I do happen to do laundry sometimes, though, and tonight, as I was pulling the whites out of the dryer, I noticed my Grandmother Tarpley's linen napkins. I remember them from the Christmas dinners of my childhood. I didn't even realize we'd used them for our own Christmas dinner this year, along with Jennifer's grandmother's fine china.
But I noticed them tonight, and it made me smile to think of my Grandmother Tarpley and how she would've loved seeing Samuel and Ethan at 13 and 10, and me and Jennifer still happily married after 21 years, and my mom and dad still happily married after 50.
And that's a good reason to use the fine china and linen napkins now and then, if only to remind ourselves that some things in life are disposable, and some things aren't.
Good post, and I totally agree. My kids always joke about seeing "the good stuff" at the table once or twice a year. I hope that some day they too will use the same "good stuff" with their families.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely.
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