Holiday Recap: Use Your Fine China

These past two weeks of Winter Break were such a blur! I cannot believe it is the New Year already. I talked the other day about what my theme for the New Year is, but still thinking back to the fun we had over the holidays.

Two out of the three siblings-in-law (and my brother-in-law's girlfriend, who is awesome) came and we had a ski trip planned; since we planned on going up to the mountains for a ski trip on Christmas day, we had Christmas Eve dinner the night before and opened presents then.

I set the table earlier in the day, using the ginger jars for inspiration. Using my ginger jars as part of the holiday decor was so much fun this season, so I definitely wanted to continue that trend, and also use our fine china.


I am a big advocate of using the nice things - why get them in the first place if they are just going to be in the boxes? I was lucky to get a full china set from my parents for our wedding and while it was hard to get them out of the boxes in our apartment and do all the washing up, I insisted that we use them every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Source: Macy's

We have the Vera Wang Grosgrain Set. It is such a timeless and versatile set (my friend Carolyn also has this set) and still available after ten years, and now it comes in Navy!

Pro tip for anyone who stumbles across this post and is making a wedding registry: Macy's has the best deals for china sets. My parents got us the twelve place settings (because my family and Mel's is already at minimum ten people) after I emailed my mom an alert that if you get a minimum of ten settings, the soup bowls come free. So I have all twelve place settings and the soup bowls to go with it.

Last year, we added these Martha Stewart salad plates to our holiday decor and they are adorable. They were last season's but I did find them on Amazon and eBay in case anyone is interested.

Mel wanted a completely separate holiday China set, but in the name of space and cost saving, I insisted that we just add holiday themed accent plates to our fine china set. Initially, we checked out the Denver Plaid, Nostalgic Santa,  Silly Stag and pretty much anything from Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma.

This is new this year at Pottery Barn: Tahoe Fair Isle (and currently on sale)

This would be perfect to add to the table for next year! 

I love the holiday plate collections from both stores - the three I mentioned from Pottery Barn do come out every year since I have been keeping a close eye on both stores, and Williams-Sonoma never disappoints with the Twas the Night Before collection.

However, the problem was that the white was not a shocking white to go against our china. Unfortunately, the holiday place settings looked yellow against the china set, so we had to make several returns and exchanges until we gave up, for the time being.

While on his annual holiday business trip back to NYC in December, Mel went over to Macy's at Herald Square. He found the Martha Stewart plates and was able to lay them with our china set to see if they matched, and it was a perfect fit!

We have easier access to our fine china now that we are in the house (the glass cabinets on either side of the stove in the kitchen were chosen specifically for that purpose so we did not need to buy a buffet for it) so silver chargers, the dinner plate and the accent plate against the Ralph Lauren tablecloth I picked up from HomeGoods worked perfectly.

I am glad I insisted on accent plates as opposed to another set - if you have a fine china set from a wedding or passed down to you (my sister has our godmother's mother's set, she was like a surrogate yiayia to us), I say use it. Do not let it collect dust.

Love it and use it, and use it even beyond the holidays. When I am feeling a little extra, or when Mel made me Mother's Day brunch our first year in the house, I use my fine china plates. It just adds a little bit of fun to that sandwich.