Mother Daughter Tea

Yesterday, I had my first annual Holiday Mother Daughter Tea. I did another tea earlier this year during Mother's Day. I guess it is a semi-annual program. I can only have a certain number of people in the program. In the spring I put the list out a month in advance--it filled up and there was a signifant waiting list. However, come Tea Party day, I had quite a few no-shows. I learned from this experience and just posted the sign-up list 12 days in advance. The result, I only had one no-show totalling 2 people. I had a total of 55 people in attendance.
The room was nice. I got garland at Michaels, and the Town Council let me borrow there garland and stockings. I brought in some stuff from home to complete the look. A Town Council member also let me borrow poinsettias that I festooned with ribbon and became the center pieces for the table.

I served a selection of sandwiches--trimmed of crusts, boxed heatables from Sam's Club, mini pigs-in-blanket, mini cresent rolls. Last week I baked a selection of scones--my favorite being the butterscotch scones. It won out for ease of baking coupled with a great flavor. I also baked some tartlets, almond cheesecake squares, tea cakes, and brownies There was only one small plate of leftovers.
For beverages, I served a variety of teas, hot chocolate--which disappeared flat right away, and hot apple cider. We attempted to make more hot chocolate but there was a slight snafu when the eggnog rather than milk ended up in the pot. Very interesting--we thought the only way to save it would have been to add rum but that wasn't possible--County property, minors and all.
I had bought some gingerbread house kits with royal icing. I was trying to take the easy simple way out by buying ready made easy to assemble kits. But --these proved to be a bit of a challenge to get together--next year I will do the old graham craker, frosting, milk carton route. Several people presented their Southern California Gingerbread Houses that had more or less been flatten by an earthquake. Thank goodness for our natural disasters.
Everyone expressed their thanks and gratitude. I enjoyed putting it together but like all parties for 60 people it takes a lot of effort and energy to make it come off. At the end of the day, I began to evaluate my programming efforts. I may just do book club and the two Teas next year. I went to bed last night at around 8:00 and didn't really stir much after 10:00 until 5:30 this morning when the Sasha and Misha decided they had had enough of me not paying attention to them. Sasha layed down on my face while Misha purred in my ear.