Xenion

We enjoy having friends or family over for dinner. We like to settle in over a leisurely meal for the kind of meaningful conversation that rarely happens in a restaurant and I enjoy preparing a good meal and a pretty table to welcome them. If nothing else, it gives us incentive to tidy up, and that's important for a couple of dedicated packrats such as we.

Another pleasure that comes from inviting friends over is hostess gifts. I expect that the custom of hostess gifts is as old as time; it is at least as old as Greek civilization. Whoever had that idea first, it was a Dusie!

We have been treated to all kinds of lovely gifts, everything from spices to homegrown fruit to candles, and our wine collection is not only larger but much better thanks to the excellent wines that friends have brought along. Most recently, we received these lovely roses when Janie and Jack came for dinner last weekend.

It's a gracious custom; I hope we are still observing it in the distant future when we are inviting our Martian friends to dinner.