One of the things that I enjoy doing is homemaking.  Yes, honest-to-goodness homemaking.  And that includes preparing and presenting meals at home.

I always held the belief that eating at home should be just as elegant as dining out at a nice restaurant.  For that reason, most of the meals at home are on a properly set table, with our good china and silverware, nice napkins, crystal wine glasses, lit candles in crystal holders, and perhaps a flower centerpiece.  This arrangement goes for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.  Sometimes we’ll tune into a Mantovani or a Tony Bennett CD for some mood music.  It’s all covered.

Now, sometimes when Best Friend and I are eating light and having only a simple thrown-together sandwich, we might eat it off of paper plates, although those paper plates are invariably good quality and the seasonally decorated ones (not the flimsy boring white ones), with matching paper napkins.

Yes, the two of us eat at home with all the class and decorum of hosting a dinner with invited guests.

We generally put aside our technological devices at the table.  I admit that sometimes I will have mine nearby out of horrific habit, but I am getting better at not using it as some awful crutch.  We might quickly use a device to clarify a fact of some sort with the conversational topic we are having, but other than that – no devices at the table.

This set-up of eating at home in an elegant manner is a year-round tradition in our home, not just for those special occasions and holidays.  Each day is extraordinarily special in our book.  Think about some of the characters on the program, The Office, who ate lunch together at work once a month, eating off of good plates, using good silverware, and holding intelligent conversation.  It’s easy to do if you try it, and you will find that you will feel good about eating like a civilized person.

I do recommend it for everyone, even for the singles who live alone.  For the time I lived by myself, I ate my meals at my dinette table with good dishes and well-made and well-presented meals.  If I stopped on the way home from work for an Italian beef sandwich, when I got home that sandwich found itself on a real plate on my dinette table, along with a good napkin and silverware.  If I also brought home something to drink, I poured that drink in a good glass – no drinking directly from the bottle or can!  (Would you drink straight from the milk jug in the refrigerator?  Hmmmmm?)  And I did not eat while watching television.  One enjoys the taste of the meal better when fully engaged.  (I did not, in fact, watch television for years, and the only time I turned it on was to watch an old movie on TCM, and that waiting until I was done eating.)

I cannot imagine dining at home in a helter-skelter and sloppy manner, when it is so easy to eat like a civilized person.

Make your holiday season classy.

As ever,

Lady Susan Marie Molloy

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