Any marriage is a blending of two different family cultures. My own marriage is no different. Those of you who know me in real life or have read this blog know that I often joke about my parent's secondary religion, that of fine china and crystal.
My in-laws, and therefore my husband grew up completely innocent of this universe of the importance of an elegant table setting.
In our marriage, we have come to a workable compromise between those two poles of thought about how one sets a table.
When my mother died and it came time to divide the objects accumulated during our parents' long marriage there were some things that each of us really wanted. There were a few things that all of us wanted and we came to a really amicable division of those things. There were lots of things that while we didn't exactly want them we knew that those objects had mattered to our parents and the taking of those object was a bit like accepting a burden.
One set of objects that fell into that last category were the mixed cups and saucers.
My parents spent the early years of their marriage in Halifax, Nova Scotia. TV had not arrived in the Maritimes in the early 1950's. Elegant dinners took the place of say, watching re-runs of Married with Children. The memory of being a proud British colonist was not all that far away. Taste, particularly in tableware was strongly influenced by England.
So in that universe one had a lovely set of fine English bone china when serving company (and of course more than one set if you kept kosher). When you served tea along with dessert (because that is what one did) you might use the teacups and saucers that came with your lovely set of china or you might use some of your beautiful mixed cups and saucers.
The mixed cups and saucers often in patterns much more flamboyant than your set of dishes were given to you a cup and saucer at a time as house-gifts or birthday gifts or as a thank you if you had been particularly kind to someone. Some of the more spectacular sets might be on display in your china cabinet.
By the time my parents had left Halifax they had a lovely collection of such cups and saucers. A few of the grandest ones were on display. The others came out as needed.
My father in his later years suffered from some disintegration of the muscles in his hands caused by having a stupid doctor( this is another long story which I won't tell here). The result of this condition was that nearly all of the teacups from the meat Passover dishes had broken. For the last several years we did Seder with my parents we used more and more of the mixed cups and saucers and fewer and fewer of the teacups that had come with the set.
I had inherited the Passover dishes after my father died and inherited making Seder for my mother and sister. We had one teacup that matched the Passover dishes and twelve people at the table. If I were more committed to the fancy dish lifestyle I would have bought replacements at Replacements.com. Instead, because I am married to my husband, and we made do with some glass mugs and I also bought a collection of hobnailed glass beer steins at the dollar store. We all had something in which to put our post Seder cups of tea.My mother was a good sport about the beer-steins.
After my mother died there was much more STUFF to figure out what to do with. My older sister kept encouraging me to take the mixed cups and saucers. Thinking about my husband, and how uncomfortable he was with the fussiness of fine china, and the even higher level of fussiness of the mixed cups and saucers I kept declining.
I think that my sister finally bypassed me and asked my husband directly. Much to my surprise, he agreed to take those cups and saucers. I was, even more, surprised the first Passover we used those cups and saucers. He greeted the array of cups waiting for him to fill with tea with the exclamation" CUPPIES!"
The cuppies became one of the many oddball delights of our Seder, along with my husband's recitation of sections of the Haggadah in Italian, the Christmas ornament shaped like a snowman that is labeled Elijah that lives in our Elijah's cup, the knock knock jokes that introduce segments of the Haggadah to name just a few of the oddball delights of our seder.
My son in law fell in love with the fanciest of the cuppies, an Aynsley cup decorated with fruit and lined in gold. It was his cuppie to use during every meat meal during Passover.
This year we had a table full of guests for the last night of Passover. My husband came into the kitchen climbed the step ladder, took out three cuppies balanced them on their matching saucers and decided to descend the step ladder as if it were a set of stairs. The stepladder has treads narrower than stairs. My husband lost his balance. He was fine. The saucers were fine, but
The top two cups were not favorites of mine. We used to call the top cup the depressed dandelions. The middle cup is kind of insipid and is entirely forgettable.
But the bottom cup,
was really the best one of all of the cuppies.
I hadn't expected it, but I was really quite sad that it had broken. I hadn't even wanted those cuppies but the loss of the best one felt like a very real loss.
My husband has fantasies of living in a minimalistic home with very little in it. But he is deeply sentimental and is very attached to objects that remind him of people and places that gave him joy. So we have a very large fairly ugly ashtray that his parents never used in our living room. We have a broken crystal and sterling silver spooner that belonged to his grandfather on the entryway. Our house is the opposite of minimal. When an object that my husband owns breaks, no matter what it's value, no matter how attractive it is, no matter if he even liked it breaks, my husband becomes truly sad.
So my husband broke three cuppies. Two of them weren't really my taste, but the whole load of them actually had monetary value in the real world with the fabulous gold one worth an actual amount of real money.
Yesterday a box arrived.
It contained this.
I was so touched that my husband replaced the best cuppie that I wept.
My in-laws, and therefore my husband grew up completely innocent of this universe of the importance of an elegant table setting.
In our marriage, we have come to a workable compromise between those two poles of thought about how one sets a table.
When my mother died and it came time to divide the objects accumulated during our parents' long marriage there were some things that each of us really wanted. There were a few things that all of us wanted and we came to a really amicable division of those things. There were lots of things that while we didn't exactly want them we knew that those objects had mattered to our parents and the taking of those object was a bit like accepting a burden.
One set of objects that fell into that last category were the mixed cups and saucers.
My parents spent the early years of their marriage in Halifax, Nova Scotia. TV had not arrived in the Maritimes in the early 1950's. Elegant dinners took the place of say, watching re-runs of Married with Children. The memory of being a proud British colonist was not all that far away. Taste, particularly in tableware was strongly influenced by England.
So in that universe one had a lovely set of fine English bone china when serving company (and of course more than one set if you kept kosher). When you served tea along with dessert (because that is what one did) you might use the teacups and saucers that came with your lovely set of china or you might use some of your beautiful mixed cups and saucers.
The mixed cups and saucers often in patterns much more flamboyant than your set of dishes were given to you a cup and saucer at a time as house-gifts or birthday gifts or as a thank you if you had been particularly kind to someone. Some of the more spectacular sets might be on display in your china cabinet.
By the time my parents had left Halifax they had a lovely collection of such cups and saucers. A few of the grandest ones were on display. The others came out as needed.
My father in his later years suffered from some disintegration of the muscles in his hands caused by having a stupid doctor( this is another long story which I won't tell here). The result of this condition was that nearly all of the teacups from the meat Passover dishes had broken. For the last several years we did Seder with my parents we used more and more of the mixed cups and saucers and fewer and fewer of the teacups that had come with the set.
I had inherited the Passover dishes after my father died and inherited making Seder for my mother and sister. We had one teacup that matched the Passover dishes and twelve people at the table. If I were more committed to the fancy dish lifestyle I would have bought replacements at Replacements.com. Instead, because I am married to my husband, and we made do with some glass mugs and I also bought a collection of hobnailed glass beer steins at the dollar store. We all had something in which to put our post Seder cups of tea.My mother was a good sport about the beer-steins.
After my mother died there was much more STUFF to figure out what to do with. My older sister kept encouraging me to take the mixed cups and saucers. Thinking about my husband, and how uncomfortable he was with the fussiness of fine china, and the even higher level of fussiness of the mixed cups and saucers I kept declining.
I think that my sister finally bypassed me and asked my husband directly. Much to my surprise, he agreed to take those cups and saucers. I was, even more, surprised the first Passover we used those cups and saucers. He greeted the array of cups waiting for him to fill with tea with the exclamation" CUPPIES!"
The cuppies became one of the many oddball delights of our Seder, along with my husband's recitation of sections of the Haggadah in Italian, the Christmas ornament shaped like a snowman that is labeled Elijah that lives in our Elijah's cup, the knock knock jokes that introduce segments of the Haggadah to name just a few of the oddball delights of our seder.
My son in law fell in love with the fanciest of the cuppies, an Aynsley cup decorated with fruit and lined in gold. It was his cuppie to use during every meat meal during Passover.
This year we had a table full of guests for the last night of Passover. My husband came into the kitchen climbed the step ladder, took out three cuppies balanced them on their matching saucers and decided to descend the step ladder as if it were a set of stairs. The stepladder has treads narrower than stairs. My husband lost his balance. He was fine. The saucers were fine, but
But the bottom cup,
I hadn't expected it, but I was really quite sad that it had broken. I hadn't even wanted those cuppies but the loss of the best one felt like a very real loss.
My husband has fantasies of living in a minimalistic home with very little in it. But he is deeply sentimental and is very attached to objects that remind him of people and places that gave him joy. So we have a very large fairly ugly ashtray that his parents never used in our living room. We have a broken crystal and sterling silver spooner that belonged to his grandfather on the entryway. Our house is the opposite of minimal. When an object that my husband owns breaks, no matter what it's value, no matter how attractive it is, no matter if he even liked it breaks, my husband becomes truly sad.
So my husband broke three cuppies. Two of them weren't really my taste, but the whole load of them actually had monetary value in the real world with the fabulous gold one worth an actual amount of real money.
Yesterday a box arrived.
It contained this.
I love this story!!! Your hubby certainly earned 'husband extraordinaire' for the happy ending.
ReplyDeleteI would have cried, too.
Oh I would have been sad if this cup broke, too. But how very special that he chose to replace it. Thank you for this story!
ReplyDelete