We finally became real adults the other year, in that we were hosting a big Thanksgiving at our own place. When we pulled out all the fine china that we'd been handed down we found that we were going to be short some table settings.

We looked at all the traditional stores (Penny's, etc) and found the prices for new china sets to be quite a lot.

On a lark, we went to the charity shop to just see what we could find. Hey, maybe, just maybe, there would be a set that matched what we already had?

The kitchen area was just chock-a-block with fine china. Glasses, plates, little forks, you name it. The silver was real silver judging by the tarnishing, still in those wooden velvet lined boxes. A bit of cellotape binding all the various items together. A whole coffee pot, pure silver, just sitting there next to dozens more. Any style or coloring or gold plating that you liked. Yeah, some of the sets were incomplete. Missing a tea up or a spoon. But no gold lined dinner plate made in Italy or Japan was ever more than a dollar.

We pieced together a whole set for 16 people of everything we could think of for under $200. Little oyster forks, big dinner plates, gold plated napkin rings, you name it, we have it now. And if we ever break anything, back to the charity shop to just replace it for under $0.50. Get a whole new set of them for under $10.

People are practically giving away all the fine china in my part of the world, and they still can barely find anyone to take it.

I don't know what our ancestors were thinking with this stuff, but I doubt it turned out like they thought it would. A good lesson to us all.