Should I sell my Christmas dishes?

[Nancyg56]

I would use them! I take mine out just before Thanksgiving so they are ready to go the day after and use them until my Christmas decorations are down.

 

[NancyIL]

I am with the majority here - keep them! I also like the idea of buying a few more dinner plates.

Having read this thread, maybe I will buy some Christmas dishes for my house! I have 4 holiday mugs and matching salad plates - but that's the extent of it!

 

[libinatorsmom]

IF you love them keep them - I have my wedding china and tea set I got from my shower (11 years ago) that I never use but always keep as I love them! And acutally I am wanting to add pieces to them even though I dont use them often?

Also I really want to buy a set of Christmas Dishes for us

 

[jgreco]

Keep them and buy a solid color that matches the set so you can mix and match. Solid Red will go with Thanksgiving also (just add brown/gold napkins), 4th of July, etc.

 

[horseshowmom]

If you're struggling with the decision that much, keep them for the time being. I'm with the ones who say to at least keep them through one more season and use them all during December. If you decide you do still want to keep them, then look into purchasing another set (or even a set that compliments what you already have) for use with the entire family.

 

[katied718]

Wow-u guys are awesome! I'm going to keep them another year & bring them out at Thanksgiving for the whole season. With all the destashing, I should be able to find a more convenient place to store them so I don't have to bug hubs to bring them down. I'm sure the kids will think that's fun too-hey-maybe they'll even eat dinner, lol! Thanks so much for all the replies!

 

[Buzzsgramma]

I was able to purchase our Christmas dishes after the holidays for 50% off..there was a service for 12 and i bought all of them...
They stay in an antique buffet in our dining room close at hand..
I start using them at Thanksgiving...enjoy...

 

[MickeyP]

Keep them and enjoy something you love. Do you ever have just the girls over for a brunch? Our church has a Christmas Tea where everyone decorates their own table.

 

[Cynt]

Keep them and use them Thanksgiving through the the New Year. Go to Walmart after Christmas and they will have their cream w/ gold trim and white w/ silver trim dishes on sale. Cheap. I have a large family and I have 24 place settings from there. It cost me less than $100. When I bought them it was 4 place settings per box. Now I think they sell them 4 plates; 4 bowls, etc. per box. The following year I purchased the Gold plates to go under the plate, dirt cheap. I don't remember the price. Love them because I can mix and match any Christmas color scheme w/ them.

 

[bankgirl05]

If you LOVE them, promise yourself you will use them this year. Make room in your cabinet and use them every day. It won't seem like as much of a hassle as it does to get them out for one meal.

I have a set of snowflake (not really Christmas) dishes that I love. I swap them out for my regular dishes the day after Thanksgiving and use them until mid-February or so. They are not super fancy, so I still use my china when I host Christmas. I am lucky to have a big china hutch, so I have room to store whatever I'm not using, and it's easy to swap them out.

THIS I have snowmen dishes that I use through winter I love them, and it makes me happy to use them.

 

[4 Ears]

Any way you can use some of the pieces for decoration during the holidays?

 

[tinytinkmom]

I would keep them! Maybe store them right next to all of your other Christmas decorations, so it's easy to grab everything all at once.... Then, as others suggested, have them for everyday use during the holidays!

 

[cheshireqt]

Our Christmas dishes come out on Thanksgiving weekend and we use them every day until shortly after New Years. Doing the switch every year is a little bit of a hassle but I love using them each year.

We do this too. I was a bit late in switching out last year and my kids were very concerned, apparently they have come to expect this as part of the Christmas magic and decor. I store them year round at the top of the cabinet so don't have to dig through decorations to find them. They are the first sign that Fall is over and Christmas is here.

 

[csharpwv]

We are on the verge of a major 'cleansing' in our house.
I am so sick of living a consumer life style accumulating things that... at the end of the day, are really just a pile of junk.
I recently read... or rather... listened (I am a big fan of audio books, I drive a LOT for work!) to Steve Jobs' biography. For the vast majority of his life, he would not bring things in to his house unless he 'LOVED' them.

At this point, I have to suggest not reading his biography... he was a jerk by most human measures, and you wouldn't like him! LOL

I am starting to feel the same way (about stuff!). Why do we bring things in to our home that we don't LOVE?

Why do we buy other people 'things' that they don't need?

Think of all the 'things' in your house that you barely have an emotional connection to? Or perhaps have no emotional connection to at all?

We just keep stocking our homes to the rafters with things we don't 'LOVE'!

If you indeed LOVE the christmas dishes, haul them out, wash them, use them, and if you don't have enough for a few more place settings you can do a few things:
Buy more to make a setting for 12-15
Mix and match the dishes using very inexpensive charger dishes
Use them throughout December as your daily dishware
and finally... find more reasons to use them!

Another judge of their actual value to you....
Is it something that one of your children would love to have passed on to them? Perhaps as a wedding gift? Or left to one of them when you pass on?

 

[NovemberBravo]

Our Christmas dishes come out on Thanksgiving weekend and we use them every day until shortly after New Years. Doing the switch every year is a little bit of a hassle but I love using them each year.

This is how I use my Christmas dishes also. I think you should try this method this year before you get rid of your dishes.

 

[DebMcDonald]

Our Christmas dishes come out on Thanksgiving weekend and we use them every day until shortly after New Years. Doing the switch every year is a little bit of a hassle but I love using them each year.

Us too!

 

[luvmy3]

If I haven't used something in 8 years it would be out if here. I guess my feeling is if you loved it, it would have been used within that time.

 

[bumbershoot]

If I haven't used something in 8 years it would be out if here. I guess my feeling is if you loved it, it would have been used within that time.

Even for those who feel that way (I'm not convinced that we have to use items to prove our love), it's different with china, though. Some people feel that china is "special" and needs to be used on a special occasion. And in the OP's case, she hasn't felt that that is possible, since there aren't enough settings for the people she has on the special occasions. That's why all of the ideas here are helpful, because they show all the fun ways you can use fancy dishes!

I have my china very available, but we still don't use it as much as I'd like, because DH is the dish-washer here, and he balks at hand-washing and is very afraid of breaking anything, especially my mom's china. So we love it and love using it, but the realities of using it keep us from using it as often as we'd like.




That Steve Jobs post made me smile. I recently replaced my 2006 macbook with a refurb '10 or '11 macbook (I just had to spill a beer on the old one). I loved my old one, but the one I'm using now is just sad and not as robust as the old one. All I do is surf (any questions of why I need a mac for that have already been asked by me, LOL), and it cannot keep up with me; it gets the beachball-of-death far too often. I do not love it. I wonder what Jobs would have thought about that?

 

[Feckless]

Like others, I mix my serving for 8 with plain white dishes to make them "go farther" for larger gatherings. Works great!

 

[Dismom55]

I am another saying keep and use, if you have to either find more of the same pattern or a complementary solid or just use them for your immediate family for everyday, but use them. Our first Christmas together after we got married my husband and I were walking thru the china section of a local store and I fell in love with a set of china, Blue Hill by Noritake (no longer made, showing my age here) I simply said I would love it if he started getting me place settings for Christmas, to my surprise, he not only got me all 12 place settings but all the serving dishes I could ever want, when I opened the box, he only told me there was one stipulation and that was I was not to stick them in the China cabinet and never use them like my mother, but I was to USE them. So I do, I use them every chance I get. So I say, get them out and use them, you love them otherwise you may regret it.