Orange Boxes.

"I don't care what you get me. I'm giving you no hints this year. And I'm not going shopping with you. You know me well enough. Pick something you want to give me."

I said this about a week ago to The Husband. When it comes to holiday shopping, we pretty much just go with each other to make sure we get the other person something they want.

Well... Actually...

I never really ask him what he wants. He does ask me. He is afraid of making a wrong choice. Though I don't know why. He knows me well enough to know getting me an super awesome Starbucks Card would have sufficed. Or new saute pan for the Boston apartment. Or a series of passes on Porter Airlines.

Once he had a few days to think it over, on Sunday afternoon he presented me with my Christmas gift...

"Squee!" I said.  "Orange boxes!!!!"

As soon as I saw the boxes, I knew what they were. And I was impressed he remembered a conversation we'd had a few weeks back where I moaned to him about breaking my one tea cup I had bought in 2011 at the Hermes store in Toronto. But he did!  And this is what was inside...

Two mugs and a decorative plate of the Balcon du Quadalquivir patterned china!  I LOVE IT!

He had remembered me fantasizing of someday having an entire set of china of this in the Boston apartment.

Two mugs down.  Probably four more needed. As well as six plates, six bowls. A coffee pot. Sugar. Creamer.

Thinking about it makes me realize just how much of a pipe dream that is.