An Ode to Fine China
By Joanne McHugh
Now that my friends and I have children old enough to marry, I’m back on the bridal shower circuit. Though they’ve all been lovely affairs, I couldn’t help but notice that one old friend is missing from today’s bridal scene: fine china.
At my own shower in the early 90s, the big reveal of my good china was the highlight of all that unwrapping. And I don’t think I was the only Gen X girl who felt this way; I recall my girlfriends being similarly excited about choosing their china patterns. It was a rite of passage.
I was not born in a stately manor, but every grown woman I knew—my mom, my grandmothers, my aunts—had a full china closet. A house wasn’t really a home unless you had something suitably formal to serve Thanksgiving dinner on.
My maternal grandmother was a coal miner’s daughter who had grown up in a hardscrabble coal patch town during the Great Depression, but she had good china. I saw her Gold China Herald pattern when I helped set the table for Sunday dinner.
Though my paternal grandmother emigrated from Germany in the 1920s with minimal personal possessions, eventually she had a set of Royal Wilton in her china closet.
I don’t know what stoked either of my grandmothers’ china aspirations, but by the time my parents were forming their own blue-collar household in 1962, Madison Avenue was letting young women know that fine china naturally went along with planning for the future. In one classic ad, the bride dreamily tells the groom, You get the license, I’ll get the Lenox.
Though my mom ended up going with a Noritake pattern, it didn’t get out of her French Provincial china closet much. And yet, it was always there, ready to elevate any occasion. When I got married three decades later, those china aspirations took hold of me. Selecting a pattern felt like the most significant registry decision I would make.
I spent months considering my options. The groom-to-be thought my repeated visits to the department store to weigh my options were a little nuts. With a wink, I told him that he ought to quietly appreciate my high standards.
I was not born in a stately manor, but every grown woman I knew—my mom, my grandmothers, my aunts—had a full china closet. A house wasn’t really a home unless you had something suitably formal to serve Thanksgiving dinner on.
Once I decided on Lenox Charleston, I was all in. Because I wanted to be able to host both sides of the family for a holiday, I registered for a dozen place settings. I also registered for crystal wine glasses and water goblets, silverplated flatware, and a full complement of serving pieces.
Given that all of this tableware wouldn’t have a permanent home until our third Thanksgiving, when our dining room finally had furniture in it, the bridal registry manager assured me that wedding guests often liked to give things they knew would become family heirlooms. So I embraced the fine tableware fantasy.
Though my Lenox Charleston spent most of its time in the closet, I loved how it looked when it graced our table. And even after reality intruded on romanticism, I was still vulnerable to the lure of fine china fantasies. As luck would have it, my maid of honor chose Lenox Riverdale when she married, and even better, she ended up living not far from a Lenox outlet store. For a time, trips to visit her involved a pilgrimage to the outlet in hopes of adding to our collections
Years later, even after my friend and I both had more pieces than our china closets could handle, we still couldn’t resist the lure of a spin around the Lenox store on our annual outlet shopping weekend.
Two summers ago, when we arrived for our annual walkabout, we found a “going out of business” sign in the Lenox outlet store window. The younger generation’s more casual lifestyle had finally caught up with formal traditions. Though I picked up a few bargains to help outfit my daughter’s college apartment, it was a sad affair—something like a wake for aspirational table-setting. I knew I’d be okay because I had more than enough to see me through.
My consolation is that I have something of an insurance policy. When we cleaned out my maternal grandmother’s house 15 years ago, I inherited her china, and more recently, after my uncle died, I agreed to take in my paternal grandmother’s too.
Though my clutter-hating husband didn’t like it, in both cases, I played the card of having available attic storage space and three daughters. How could I let the dishes that had hosted so many eye round roasts and butter-browned potatoes for our family over the years be given to a stranger, or worse, destroyed?
“Aren’t they going to want to pick out their own china?” he asked.
From his lips to God’s ears. But I’m hoping that even if my daughters don’t follow in my footsteps, they’ll find space for some of the dearest family heirlooms we’ll ever have. For now, I welcome the opportunity to host three full sets of serveware.
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Joanne McHugh loves throwback photos and telling funny stories about coming of age in the 70s and 80s. She’s on a mission to share everything she thinks 20-somethings should know about building a life. (Learn 5 things she wishes somebody had told her about what to expect when becoming a grown-up.) She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband of thirty-two years, a Labrador retriever, a couple of cats, and grown children who are occasionally in residence.