This is a sweet memory made sweeter by what I am about to tell you.

Wendy loves dishes. She’s a dishaholic… okay, maybe that’s a bit strong but she enjoys having different dishes for different occasions. She has some lovely ones and some very practical ones. For example, we have had since before we got married a set of Corelle dishes, in fact at one time we had two sets. One set for the house, one for the trailer. They are practical.

When we were getting married, as many couples of our era had, we were given for wedding presents “good dishes”. Wendy was the admin support for an engineering group. Fourteen engineers to be exact who set up communication towers. The precursor to our cell phone system. As a gift, they gave us several sets of our good dishes.

Then we have what I call our good everyday dishes – a lovely set of everyday Royal Doulton dishes that matched what my Mom and Dad had and which have been gifted to us.

And then we have our Christmas dishes. Philip mentioned the other day that he remembered when we got them, who bought them, oh and that we bought them at Canadian Tire. (Don’t you buy all your dishes at CT?) So here’s the sweet part of the memory. These were bought for us by Wendy’s Mom. As they are used for such a short time, we would unbox them, wash them up, use them for the season and then put them back in their boxes as we would say each year, “Well I wonder where we will unpack our Christmas things next year?”.

Ruth bought us three boxes so we would always have enough for guests. Wendy cherished them and would always ask me to get them out early in the season. With Wendy’s Mom gone, it was always a reminder of her.

Here’s where the neat part I think is. This year, for the first time we were able to unpack them and I am able to throw out the boxes. We won’t be unpacking them anywhere else but here now. And that’s a great feeling too.

I’ve lived in enough places. No more moving for me, please. At least that’s how I feel now!

So the boxes will go to recycling and the dishes will take a special place in the new kitchen cupboards. And that’s the most wonderful feeling.

In case you were wondering here’s my list of places lived, in order without dates; Calgary, Winnipeg, St. John, Orillia, Hamilton, Toronto, Mississauga, St. John’s, Toronto, Mississauga, Toronto, Listowel, Mississauga, Hamilton, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Edmonton.