Tea Parties with your children

The tea party thing about CM always has cracked me up. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is fun to make tea and eat cookies…even my boys loved it when they were little! But I can’t help but think that tea parties being linked to CM has more to do with the fact that Charlotte was British – and that Karen Andreola is an admitted Anglophile – than with any educational facet to tea parties, per se.

In other words, if tea parties are your thing – more power to you! But they don’t really fall into the category of mandatory CM education, do they?

Okay, so now that I have convinced you all that I am a huge cynic, I may as well admit that I did throw one monster tea party for my daughter’s 9th birthday. It was in an antique tea house…they wore hats and gloves and pearls and ate off of adorable china plates. I made lemon bars and little sandwiches and we were all as girli-fied as we could be. It was fun!

But we have learned a heck-uv-a lot more about etiquette and hospitality in everyday life than we did at the party :-).

I had no idea tea was a CM “thing”.  My 2 boys and I have been doing this for a couple years but we keep it simple, they are now almost 7 and 9.  They like to pour the tea from my $5 pot from Walgreens, use my nice wedding china cups and saucers, whosever day it is to be the special helper gets to light some candles on the hope chest-coffee table.  Peppermint with stevia is usually it.  I do snack with it, a boiled egg, cheese and nuts or crackers, sliced fruit, sometimes will have a homemade baked good like bread and jam, cookies or banana bread…they are always hungry. 🙂  I used to let them pick a picture book or two for me to read, lately there has been requests for Little House on the Prairie and castles and Marco Polo.  Sometimes will read a poem too.  Then I go lay down while they play inside or have quiet time because I just can’t. read. another. book that day!   Have fun with it!