6 tea glasses, 6 cocktail glasses, 6 soup bowls, 12 service plates, 6 salad plates, 6 dinner plates, 5 coffee cups, 6 dessert glasses, and three tired hosts. Sounds a little like the Twelve Days of Christmas. Nobody knows the words to that song anyway.

It pleases the parents who, at 83 and 82, have the rights to some gifts in their lives. My mother-in-law is thrilled when I bring out her mother's china. As she was leaving the other day, she surveyed the used dishes collected on the bar and said "Look at that. That china is pretty even when it's dirty."

Oh, you note, there should have been dishes for 8. Nada. I don't ever plan to eat like that at 12:30, and the logistics of getting a five-course meal for six out within an hour and a half or so prevents the cooks from eating at that time. (Menu: shrimp cocktail, seafood gumbo, garlic bread, Antoine's mixed salad, Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters Bienville, chocolate mousse, iced tea and coffee). I have waitressed in the past, but never had the collected responsibilities of cooking, waiting and bussing for one table in my life before my marriage. Another reason not to eat -- our dinner table only seats six comfortably. But everyone was happy with the food, if not the indigestion. My fingers have finally rehydrated after all the dishwashing. It was an overcast and cool day, so we had a fire in the fireplace, Lucy was a good girl, and the first day of Christmas at our house was "a good thing". Even if it was on Friday the 13th.