Home Haven Homemaking Lesson and Tea

Mondays matter and oh how I love them.  The week-end is usually full of activities that run us ragged.  My Mondays are usually what I think of as a down day to do laundry, look over the bills that need attention during the week and freshen up on what needs done.

Our week-end was full of deep cleaning and rearranging Family~room furniture...doing the shuffle to prepare for the Christmas Tree.  It is up with the lights on and decked out with stuffed toys.  I wanted a children friendly tree again this year.  Pics to follow.

Focusing this Monday on entertaining I cracked opened my 1926 book to read about THE LARGE TEA.  I wish Sarah had gone into more detail...but that's the way it goes.  I can see where drawing the drapes and lighting some candles would be a nice touch for a tea.  Special lighting always seems to create a mood that you can't ignore.  I don't believe I've ever seen a tea-fight as she mentions.

I would L O V E to go to a Christmas Tea just for Ladies.  How's about you?  If there's no tea party in sight....taking some quiet time to enjoy a tea/coffee break goes along ways.  Sipping water will do.  The point is treat yourself so you are refreshed and not grouchy toward others around you.  Say a prayer and Thank God for life.  My husband is laughing just about now.

Have a delightful day and may God bless you.

~Deanna~

THE ART OF

Cooking and Serving

by Sarah Field Splint

THE LARGE TEA

The formal reception as a form of entertaining has been relegated to the past along with bustles and hips and ping-pong and has been replaced by the jollier, less formal afternoon tea.  This may be of any proportions from the two or three intimates gathered together over a small tea table to the large affair introducing a society bud.

For the larger functions the living-room table is laid with a pretty cloth, the tea service at one end, and if men are invited, a service of coffee is surely at the other.  (If just women are coming, chocolate might be provided instead.)  If the time is summer, the table is usually out on the veranda or on a the lawn, and the tea becomes an even less formal affair.

But for the indoor tea, the shades are drawn and the table is lighted with candles.  There is a handsome centerpiece of flowers, and both on the table and the sideboard or buffet are small dishes of various kinds of candies and salted nuts so that a guest may help herself.  Dishes of small and delicious sandwiches and cakes are either on the table within easy reach or they are passed by maids or by friends who are assisting.

The tea or coffee service is presided over by an intimate friend of the hostess who usually knows most of the guests and says something agreeable to them as they pause beside her.  While there are irreverent men who call this kind of party a "tea-fight" it will always be dear to the hearts of women, who find it an easy as well as a satisfactory way of dispensing hospitality.  

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