| 
Most grocery stores here have dishes for special promotions.  I bought a china dinner plate and a cup and saucer set when I moved here last August.  That plate is white with green ivy leaves around the edge.  Then, when it was early December and my mother was taking the bus up for a weekend visit, I bought another dinner plate and a mug.  That pattern has small pine branches, mainly needles with a few pine cones nestled close.  At least all the dishes are white with green decoration.  I splurged and bought a red candle, one of those pillar ones, that smelled like spices when it burned. That was our centerpiece.
 When I was nine, the grocery store down the block did something different.  One Saturday Mom brought home the first two volumes of an encyclopedia.  The first was only ninety-nine cents but the second was $3.99.  After that, she bought a volume when she could, but we never did get the full set.
 
 
 
 |