Sugar and Spice: A Taste of the Sweet Life: Time for Tea

Do you remember when tea parties were a magical experience? You rarely had actual tea, but sitting around the table with your dolls and stuffed animals, you were the most proper and elegant ladies there ever were. Funny how they were some of our happiest times, and yet when our little girls ask us to come back to that world with them, we either decline with mumblings of how we're busy right now, or we go, but we don’t really put our whole selves into it.

Back at Christmas, my daughter, Emily, was bugging me to have a tea party. Not a ‘let’s sit down and have some tea’ tea party, but a ‘let’s invite our family and a bunch of friends and have a legit tea party’ tea party. Well, I put her off at the time, saying we were just too busy, but maybe we could do it for Mother’s Day. She accepted it graciously and moved on with life. And I, of course, put it out of my mind and never gave it another thought. Then a couple weeks ago, Emily came to me and exclaimed, “Mommy, we really need to work on our tea party! Mother’s Day is coming up soon!” Well, there was no getting out of it this time. I had committed myself so many months ago. Without much excitement, I called Em over to the computer so we could quickly get invitations made. Now, I knew the girl would have some opinions on who to invite and what food to serve, but let me tell you – this girl KNEW what she wanted. This was not ‘mommy throwing Em a party’. This was ‘Emily is throwing a party and mommy is helping’.

We flipped through cookbooks together, discussing the menu. We planned activities, who to invite, how to set the tables. I think I enjoyed our time together planning even more than the actual party! When I started all this, I really thought nothing more of it than I was fulfilling a promise to my daughter. But it really turned into a bonding experience with my baby girl.

The party itself was no less special. We had a light lunch and dessert. And of course, being true Southerners, we enjoyed sweet tea and lemonade. Emily and her cousin Elizabeth passed out special bracelets and fans they had each made. And Emily told us a couple of her own jokes. It was a lovely opportunity to just step back from life for a little bit and enjoy being together- to remember what it was like to be little girls with all of their sweet little dreams. It was a time of bonding and sharing, and just enjoying the simpleness of being together. And all it really took was setting the table, making a couple of snacks, and slowing down to enjoy the experience of throwing a party with my daughter.