A Tea Party
Today Roy and I hosted a tea party at our home in honor of my 23rd birthday (which was a few weeks ago). We love parties and celebrations so even though we were busy with all the Keith Johnstone stuff around my actual birthday we put off having a party until now.
We were originally going to have it in the park (the weather has just been so gorgeous lately, it was like spring had come early), but a blustery cold front blew in and ruined that idea. I think it was actually for the best, though, because the logistics for keeping hot tea coming in the middle of a park were started to boggle my mind.
I actually researched for this party, looking up recipes and ideas. Roy and I went on several lengthy shopping trips for both decor and food. We had several tea pots and cups and Roy even ordered Czech desserts via UPS from La Grange. We filled the living room with English tea roses and other flowers and had a lace table cloth and paper doilies all over the place. We asked the guests to dress their fanciest and they did! Valerie made me a beautiful dark blue velvet capelet trimmed in vintage lace. She also made a smaller one for Tuesday so we could match (pics, Val?)! Tuesday was sooo adorable. I downloaded the soundtrack to Becoming Jane and played it throughout the party.
Like most parties I host, I spent the first hour putting out drinks and trays of food :\. I was running behind and felt guilty about that. Bleh, I'm always running behind on those things. I had all the ingredients for three different kinds of tea sandwiches that I never got around to making. But we did have fresh-baked scones with honey, jam, and real clotted cream from England, so at least that was right.
Roy made a last-minute shopping trip to find a croquet set, and even though he couldn't find that, he did buy a badminton set - complete with a net, 4 rackets, and 2 shuttlecocks. Playing badminton is awesome. I had no idea. All the youths were quite intrigued by the sport, as were a few girls. I had prizes to give away so we had a little tournament. Thermal beat The Dashing Dandies from Devonshire by quite a large margin despite their fantastic name. Then we played musical chairs which had me cracking up for it was 11 people playing out in the cold, scored by Ke$ha's 'Blah Blah Blah' song. We also played the 'Tea Mime' game and the 'Blindfolded with Mittens' game. Utterly ridiculous. As the guests left we gave them party favors in little pink sacks. Yay parties! I love that we can still play musical chairs and the like. More frivolous living, please. Life could use a little more whimsy. I'm so glad my husband agrees.
I think some of my friends took pictures, so I'll post those if I get my hands on them.
Yay. Now if only I could calm down enough to more fully appreciate the parties we host in our home. Ah well, more to come, of course. I can't wait to plan Roy's birthday party in April.
Roy and I saw Sherlock Holmes earlier, which we unexpectedly loved. The trailer made it look like some sort of beefed up action flick but it was actually quite good. The fact that I didn't know I was going to love it beforehand means I was not the target audience for the preview, I guess. Much better than The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which I thought for certain I would love. I think Holmes was all the richer of an experience due to our recent London trip and Dickens study.
Now I am sitting in a clean living room surrounded by all sorts of blooming roses, pink and yellow crepe paper streamers still hanging above my head. It's rather nice. I'll probably curl up with a book to cap off the weekend.