Posted by:
exminion
(
)
Date: July 30, 2019 05:35AM
I'm of English heritage, on all sides of my family, and I grew up having tea parties with my tea set and, later with real tea sets, with my TBM mother, cousins and aunts. We drank weak green tea with milk. I carried on the tradition with my daughter, when we were Mormons.
I have a couple of dinnerware coffee pots, and they're the same as cocoa pots. Toy coffee pots, these days, are still the tall, old-fashioned cocoa pots, not the restaurant style. Yeah, sets should have the Starbuck's paper cups with lids.
My daughter got her daughter a tea set, and we used to love to have tea parties, with dolls and animals and other guests, at the little table, with the little chairs. We ate finger sandwiches, crackers and cheese, fruit, with milk or juice instead of tea. We would have real conversations (a thing of the past)! Even though we never served tea, my daughter's TBM husband asked me to NOT have any more tea parties! Because of the Word of Wisdom. I cried, privately, but obeyed his priesthood authority, so he wouldn't pout and upset my daughter.
He takes my granddaughter to her TBM grandmother's house, where she can help herself to all the candy bars she wants out of the candy drawer, and eat 4 different kinds of cookies, and caffeinated soda pop from their well-stocked soda refrigerator in their garage. They play bingo (gambling?) with candy as the prizes. TBM grandma brings candy bars to all the soccer games. My little granddaughter had deep cavities, 2 crowns, and a rotten tooth removed, by the time she was 5.
The best traditions of the tea parties were being polite to each other, serving each other, connecting with each other, learning the give and take of conversation, being "grown up." We now have "fancy luncheons" with fancy china plates and crystal stemware (wine goblets?) with the other (non-Mormon) grandchildren, or "brunch in the garden" in the summers--but I'll be damned if I'll serve Coke or candy bars!