Tea Party Part II

The preparation for the tea was a process. At first I thought for the craft portion of the program, I would have them make felt butterfly magnets. I borrowed a multi-piece die from Lancaster Library. But when I tried to cut out the felt, it failed to cut all the way through. So I had to rethink my craft. I decided rather to have them make greeting cards using the butterfly die cut out of craft paper, felt mini-flowers, felt and paper mini hearts and felt and paper mini butterflies. It turned out well. I was pleased with the proto-types I made.

The party favor. I don't even remember what options I considered, there were many. In the end I settled on paper flowers made out of heavier two sided scrapbooking paper. I also decided to make them into magnets rather than putting them on to floral wire. This save a pretty good amount of time. Recently I requested a book on paper flowers and had already planned to do a program on how to make them. I realized while creating a couple of flowers for the program that I could use them as the party favor and advertize for my program next Monday evening at the same time.

Then came the food for the program. Thankfully my former supervisor Josie let me know through the grapevine that she would make me some of her famous lemon squares and brownies. I gladly took her up on the offer. I wanted to do something a bit different from my usual fare of Sam's Club mini quiches and a couple of other frozen nuke and serve dishes. This time I roasted some mini potatoes and then threaded them onto skewers with mini tomatoes and then popped them back into the oven for a bit. I also found a fast recipe for haricot vert (French green beans). At first I planned to grate carrots, and cucumbers and then add cranberries and mint for a refreshing spring salad but on the day of I realized that the carrots were too thin to grate so I improvised, cut them into large matchsticks and sauteed them with butter and brown sugar. I garnished them with fresh mint. Of course I made tea sandwiches but to add a little bit of variety I made (or rather had the volunteers make) grilled ham & Colby cheese sandwiches.

I bought a mini tea cake pan that I wanted to try out. I had the thought I might have time to do them up proper but in the end Friday night after picking up last minute ingredients I didn't have time to make the glaze for them. The recipe that came with the pan was a little bit too thick and I ended up with overflow that I had to cut off and bubbles, but they were cute. Instead of the glaze, I just dusted them with brown sugar. By the end of the tea, there was one lone potato and one tiny tea cake left on the table. So I am assuming that it was all pretty good or maybe I just didn't make enough!
I had fully planned to make a variety of scones for the tea but a night in kitty emergency (I will elaborate in the next entry)threw my timing off. But fortunately, my adult volunteer contributed scones for the fete.
The biggest success was the punch. I don't know where I got the punch recipe, I have been using it for a while now but everyone loved it and asked for the recipe. I used one can each of frozen orange, pineapple and lemonade concentrate thawed. I added two bottles of lemon lime soda--this time I used Squirt because it was on sale and then added about half to three quarters cup of grenadine to give it a nice hue. I added ice and water to fill up the punch carafe.

For entertainment I told stories that I titled "Stories My Mother Told". I talked a bit about growing up with bedtime stories that my mother wove for my and my brother. She would call Nightmare the luminous dapple gray horse to our bedside and take us to Nappies Town where we would run into literary creatures such as the Owl and the Pussy Cat, the Gumdrop Tree with the Chocolate Cat and Gingerbread Dog. We would always end our visit with milk and cookies at the Wise Old Owl's house where we could ask one question. I also talked about the time my mother sewed up the Easter Bunny when he fell and hurt himself on the barbed wire fence. My mother took the broken eggs off his hands for our baskets. I then told them that I host the Mother Daughter Tea in honor of my mother because I think she is an amazing person. I believe that my love for literature, librarianship and travel stem from those early bedtime adventures sprinkled with literary references that required no passport.

The last portion of the program is a free raffle. I collect little gifts either from donations or things that I pick up fairly inexpensively. I give each attendee three slips of paper, they write their name on the slips and then they place the slips in the the cups next to the prize they would like to win. At the end of the program I draw out the winning names. It is fun. This year the big prize was a Disney gift with a Tinkerbell butterfly shaped bag filled with a Cinderella Barbie and a fairy necklace. The daughters of the mother who won the prize almost came to blows over who got what. So again, I will assume that it was a success.
Now I need to start planning the winter tea party!

Spring Mother Daughter Tea at the Library Part I

This spring was my third Mother Daugther Tea that I hosted at the library. I host them in both the spring the Saturday before Mother's Day and in the winter a few weeks before Christmas. The word is getting out that this is a good program to come to. This year I set sign up to begin on April 27th, the participants could e-mail me, call me or come into the library. By 1:00 pm the sign up list was full and the waiting list was being generated. I set the total at 21 mothers plus and daughters, granddaughters, grandmothers, etc that there might be. I actually increased the number to 24 mothers before I shut the list down--I have a hard time saying no!

There was one initial concern, we had a mother call to sign up right at 11:00, she wanted to register her and her son. I didn't quite know how to handle this, I explained that it was the Mother Daughter Tea but she insisted that she should be able to attend with her son if she wanted to. Yes, it is a library program so it is open to the public. Since this is billed as a family program and she is a family therefore she falls into the category. I told her that I needed to get with my supervisor and then I would call her back. I decided to check with other libraries that host Mother Daughter Teas. I trolled the internet for a couple of numbers, one was in Lousiana and the librarian there told me that sometimes they get mothers and sons but she just explains that if the son will be comfortable in the atmosphere then feel free to bring them. I also called Santa Monica who has been doing the tea for about 5 years, the librarian there said that she hadn't run into the problem yet and that she felt that the title of the program was self explanitory.
Why a Mother Daughter Tea? Why not just a Mother's Day Tea? I've have pondered this and other than well, it sounds catchy, feels right, and other people are doing it, too, I haven't gotten very far without getting philosophical.
Gender issues are always complicated. The whole reason I have put the tea together is that I would love to attend one with my own mother. I remember the times that my mother and did events together and still do, these bond us, create memories, and we can do girly things, talk about girly things. Yes, gender differences are alive and well in my mind. I don't think that gender differences have anything to do with actually equality. I personally think that there are certain areas that women wrongly and dangerously use their femaleness to their advantage--but I might explore this at a later date.

At any rate the mother and son duo was a no show. Oh well, I had wondered how I would handle this situation if it arose and next time I will be able to handle it better--it's all a learning process. I am still fairly new at the hosting the tea. Each time, I get a little better and the overall product is smoothers and more professional. One volunteer that helped me last year during the first tea, was astounded at how much better prepared I was this year. I still have a bit more polishing to do but again it is a learning process, I am figuring out when to get things started to minimize the chaos on the day of the tea. This year I had 68 people in attendance which is the maximum number of people that I can handle in the room.
In the winter, I have decided that I will handle the sign ups by lottery. Because the sign ups closed so quickly and a number of the attendees were repeaters that knew that they needed to get in quickly, I want to give other people that haven't heard of the tea a chance. So in the winter, I will have the entry time over a period of a week, then I will do the drawing, contact the winners and then hold the others on the waiting list. I think that this will be easier for me and the staff. The first 3 hours of Monday the 27th was chaos with people. I believe I will also be able to manage the list better. This year there were a couple of snafus in the list that I had to sort out during the seating period of the tea. Again it is a learning experience.