Autumn leaves are falling,
and the tea kettle is calling.
Warm greetings to you, dear friends!
It is a tremendous pleasure to have you over for a visit today...
do make yourself a cuppa tea and settle in for a while.
Get cozy and comfortable and let's enjoy an autumn afternoon teatime together,
shall we?
A couple weeks ago we hosted our very first Autumn Tea Party, and it was a grand success!
Oh, I'm just sure that this will become an annual thing.
My sister, mom and I, along with two friends from our old neighborhood, enjoyed a lovely, quaint teatime on a sunny, crisply cool autumn Saturday. The weather was just perfect and set the most delightful tone for our tea party. Our afternoon was filled with lots of laughter and plenty of chatting too...it's always a fun time when we get together with these friends.
I do have to say, though, that the fun started the evening before when we began our preparations for the party the next day. On a Friday evening we set out in the kitchen with a long list of tasks needing to be completed, things to be baked and mixed up, and a bit of tidying up, too. Also, not to forget, picking out the perfect teacups and teapot and pieces for our table settings. We worked for about six hours on Friday night, leaving only the things that had to be done last minute for Saturday morning.
I stuck with a proper tea menu of three savouries, three sweets and one scone. We had a variety of teas, but the absolute favorite of the afternoon was a blend that I affectionately named, "October's Party Tea". It is a simple blend of black (decaf!) tea and fruit juices and a bit of pumpkin pie spice. Truly, it was the perfect blend of spices and sweetness with a fruity hint in the background...everyone loved it and all declared it a winner! In fact, our friends asked me to send them the recipe because they loved it so much...we quite agreed!
I'm going to make everything around me beautiful.
That will be my life.
-Elsie De Wolfe-
Our teatime menu:
♥ Chicken, Apple & Cheddar on White Bread with Honey Mustard
♥ Turkey, Cranberry & Spinach Pinwheels
♥ Wild Rice Phyllo Cups with Citrus Vinaigrette
♥ Old-Fashioned Gingerbread
♥ Mini Caramel Apple Crisp Cheesecakes
♥ Autumn Spice Cookies with Frosting
♥ Cream Scones with Homemade Apple Butter and Spiced Cream
♥ Black Tea
♥ Herbal Teas
♥ October's Party Tea
Beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it.
-John O'Donohue-
With candles flickering and little pumpkins gracing our table, we gathered round and filled our plates with such delicious delicacies. We chatted for hours and laughed hard and watched squirrels playing outside through the window. It was a blessed time of friendship and fun and good food, and we ended the afternoon by moving into the living room where the conversation flowed and we told stories of recent travels and spoke of our old neighborhood and laughed at the crazy antics of each family's pets.
It's tea o-clock somewhere.
After our friends left, we were feeling full to the brim with gratitude for such a lovely time. Since it was such a picture-perfect autumn day, we settled in on our driveway and sat around my mom's firepit. The night rolled in and the sky became black, with nearly the only light coming from the moon in the far distance. The air was getting chillier and quite nippy, so we pulled on warm jackets and huddled closer to the fire...we listened to our favorite traditional Irish tunes and shared reflections from our day. The day ended with such an abundant thankfulness filling our hearts...and we all remarked on how we couldn't wait to do it again...perhaps at Christmastime.
What happens around the teapot;
stays around the teapot.
Thank you for coming by for a visit today, dear ones...
it is always a delight to know such kindred spirits gather here.
I'll be sharing more teatime posts soon, so keep your kettle handy and your teacups ready.
I hope you'll come back again very soon!
May your day be a blessed one in every single way!
♥♥♥