Because of tradition and with my mother-in-law Dolores’ urging, I have a formal china set. For those who remember DeGroff’s Department Store, my china set is made up of all the sample settings that were displayed on the wall - and had a hint of blue in the design.

I brought the pieces home, and it immediately went onto my china cabinet built by dad. And for 10 months out of the year, those china pieces sat on the shelves, never coming down for use because I never had a formal event that required the use of china.

But every December, I would remove the china from the cabinet, wrapping each piece in newspaper and carefully placing each plate, cup and saucer into a tote. Taking their place on the shelves would be an inexpensive set of Christmas dinnerware, purchased from the Five and Dime, what would be our dollar stores today.

Piece by piece, I would place the red-and-green-themed bowls, stemware, and coffee mugs on the shelves. And the plates adorned with snowmen and pine trees would get used every meal from December, through Christmas and into the new year.

Then sometime in late January, I would reverse the process, with the holiday plates going back into the tote and the fine china pieces resuming their place on the shelves, none of them to be touched or used for another 10 months.

Then a few years ago, I began to ask myself why I was doing that elaborate process? Why did I feel like I had to have fine china on display rather than the holiday plates? Why was I putting away the holiday plates if I enjoyed them so much? So I stopped.

In January, I left the china pieces sitting in a tote in my basement, and I simply left the fun, holiday plates on the shelves year-round. I like that the plates infuse a sense of Christmas joy year-round. I’m not worried about them getting chipped or broken because they likely won’t break as easily. And I simply enjoy them a lot better than the porcelain pieces that had occupied the shelves for decades.

Not only do the holiday dishes get used regularly during the winter months, but throughout the year they are pulled out for meals, for events, for snacks. I look over throughout the year and a small smile comes across my face because I like the nostalgic images of bikes hauling Christmas trees on the pieces.

Regularly, we make decisions based on what is expected of us or what is normal in our society. We are expected to put up holiday decorations each winter and then take them down soon after. And I get it - they are holiday decorations after all. But if we enjoy the holiday decorations that much, we should be able to leave them up and use them year-round.

Plus, I have found another hour of free time, simply by not switching out my dishes. Is this a life-altering decision? No, but it is a life-altering way of thinking.

So much of what we do in our daily lives is what is expected of us or what we do to fit in or it is what we have always done. What if we paused for just a moment to question whether what we’ve been doing for years is what we should continue to do? What if we questioned whether fitting in is the best path or should we be willing to stand out from the crowd?

What if we considered doing something different would make our lives and perhaps those around us even better? Whether it is deciding to use your holiday dishes year-round or pushing back against the status quo in your community, we need to take a moment to reflect on our decision making and ask ourselves: Is this making our lives a little bit better? Is this making our community a little bit better?

***

And what about the fine china set? It is still sitting in a tote in my basement that I stumble across occasionally and wonder, “Why do I still have this?” At this point, I figure I have three options for the china set unless someone has a better idea: start using them on a daily basis, donate them to a thrift store, or gift them to my children and make them deal with it years down the road