The dessert plates, plain and for the holidays.

For Me is Villeroy & Boch's simple white porcelain line, made in Germany, in a size that takes a side salad as easily as a wedge of tart. At about $19 a plate, it is the least expensive way into good European porcelain.

Buying by the plate is the point. Get as many as the table needs, add two for breakage, and replace a chipped one years from now without hunting for a set. Plain white also means it will sit next to whatever dinner plates you already own.

Skip it if you want color or pattern; this is the quiet plate. Villeroy & Boch has been making ceramics since 1748, and this is its everyday end.

Le Creuset's stoneware is made for daily use, and its salad plate is the sturdiest small plate here. The glaze is non-porous and scratch resistant, and Le Creuset says it resists staining, flavor absorption, cracking and crazing. Each plate is 8.5 inches across.

The care list is the longest of any plate we looked at: freezer, oven, microwave, broiler and dishwasher, and it tolerates metal utensils. A plate that can warm a slice of pie in the oven and then go on the table is more useful than it sounds.

The same plate comes in Le Creuset's colors, from white to Cerise and Marseille blue, sold in sets of four. Skip it if you want something light and delicate; stoneware is heavier in the hand than porcelain.

Susan Williams-Ellis designed Botanic Garden for Portmeirion in 1972, working from the hand-colored plates of an 1817 botanical dictionary. The idea was new at the time: every piece a different plant, so a table set with it never repeats. It is still in production and made in England.

The Exotic version swaps the English garden flowers for moth orchid, red ginger, white water lily, dragonfly, hibiscus and bird of paradise, one on each of the six plates. At 8.5 inches they suit salad, cake or a small lunch, and they are dishwasher, microwave, freezer and warm-oven safe.

Pattern is the risk. If the rest of your table is spare and modern, these will dominate it. For a garden lunch, a spring dessert or any table with a bit of color already on it, they are a pleasure.

Bayberry is Lenox's newer holiday pattern: loose, hand-sketched berries and winter greenery on white porcelain, lighter in spirit than the gold-banded holly of the older Lenox Holiday line. The dessert plates are 8.25 inches across, sold in a set of four.

Unlike most trimmed holiday china, they are both dishwasher and microwave safe, which is what makes a seasonal pattern worth owning. You can use them for cookies on the counter all month, not just for the one dinner.

At 8.25 inches they are dessert plates first, a little small for a full dinner salad. Skip them if you want your holiday table to be formal; for that, look at the Juliska below.

Toy's Delight is Villeroy & Boch's Christmas pattern: red rims and a nostalgic painted scene of toys and trees. This 9.5 inch plate, with a Christmas tree at its center and a curved edge, is sold as a breakfast or salad plate and is the right size for a proper slice of cake or a plate of cookies.

The collection is large and sold open stock, which is why people build it up over years: a few plates one Christmas, a cake plate or a mug the next. It is made in Villeroy & Boch's premium porcelain with an impact-resistant edge.

Read the care line. This listing says to wipe it clean and that it is not for the microwave. Treat it as holiday china: hand wash, dry, and put it away in January.

Country Estate is Juliska's toile-like pattern of an English manor and its grounds, and Winter Frolic is its Christmas chapter: Santa and the household in the snow, one scene per plate in this set of four, drawn in deep ruby red. Each plate is 8.5 inches with a gently scalloped rim, made in Portugal and signed by the artisan.

They are more practical than they look. Juliska rates its stoneware for the dishwasher (avoiding high heat), microwave, freezer and oven up to 500 degrees, and all of it is lead free. The set arrives in a red gift box, which makes it a sensible present for someone who hosts Christmas.

The pattern also comes in evergreen. Skip it if you prefer your holiday table spare; this is storybook china, and proud of it.