Tea Party

When my daughter turned 14, she decided she was done with themed birthday parties and wanted to invite her friends over for a casual affair instead. However, seeing my disappointment in it being the first year that I was not able to put my creative abilities to work in creating another unforgettable birthday bonanza, she said she would be ok in having a theme for our family party for her. For this party, she said she would like a Tea Party theme. Of course, my first thought was of the iconic Alice in Wonderland Tea Party, so that’s where I started. As with all my parties, I start the planning process by brainstorming on my three A’s: Ambiance, Adornments, and Activities.

For the Ambiance, the obvious choice in the middle of winter was to hold it inside in our dining room. I covered our dining room table with a flowered, spring-like table cloth and purchased some Alice in Wonderland wall decorations on-line. I also purchased a beautiful tea set that doubled as a birthday gift for my daughter. The table was covered with tea party food, some of which were displayed on tiered dessert towers. I used decorative flowered paper-plates and set them on top of plastic colored-plates in different sizes to create a more elegant setting.

For Adornments I included candied sugar stirrers, decorative tea spoons, paper flowered straws, little plastic bottles full of water with tags on them that said “Drink Me”, food toothpicks with flags that said “Eat Me”, scattered Disney Alice in Wonderland figurines (that were also placed on the cake), and a large stuffed Cheshire cat.

For Activities, the main one obviously was the tea party itself. We had all different tea flavors to try. For the finger food, we had tea sandwiches, tea cookies, cheese and crackers, various single-sized desserts, and scones with jam and clotted cream.

Other activities included Pin-the-tail-on-the-Cheshire-Cat, and a photo cut-out of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

We ended with the Birthday cake that we adorned with Alice in Wonderland figures. My daughter loved her Tea Party! So, as long as she still allows me to put together a family-only theme party for her every once in awhile, I’ll be okay with her new teenager attitude of non-celebratory celebrations with her friends.