Good morning, friends, and happy Christmastide to you all!
I had planned on getting this post up well before Christmas Day, but alas, December. That's all I can say! Ha! The weeks leading up to Christmas were full but lovely in every way. We baked lots of cookies and treats, both for our family and to share with neighbors and friends. We spent most of the month just at home doing simple little things, such as crafting and baking and decorating and really enjoying the beauty of our own home during the season. We didn't even go out to see any Christmas lights until Thursday evening, but to be honest, we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything because around where we live, every business, street light post, and many homes are decorated in such a festive way! It's truly been such a delight to experience folks really getting into the Christmas fun...and it makes it feel so magical where we live, too! (Polar opposite from our old neighborhood and part of town.)
Anyway, enough rambling...
The start of December brought our first annual Christmas tea party. And oh what fun it was! My mom, sister and I enjoyed a splendid afternoon and evening with two friends from our old neighborhood, who we've known for nearly twenty years now.
We spent the entire night before, well into the wee hours of the morning, preparing the many sweets and savouries for the party, as well as washing handpicked mugs for each guest and making place settings. I pondered just exactly how I wanted to decorate the table that night, so the next morning, I rummaged through my room and pulled decorations from here and there and gathered them on the table...and it turned out just how I'd hoped.
Our menu was scrumdiddlyumptious, if I may say so, and included old favorites of ours:
Savouries:
Sausage Balls
Poppyseed Ham and Cheese Sliders
Chicken Salad with Cranberries on Whole Wheat Crackers
Sweets:
Christmas Cookies (details below)
Chocolate Cream Cupcakes with Ganache
Marshmallow Winter Bars
Scones:
Simple Cream Scones
Chocolatey Goodness Sauce
Pepperminty Whipped Cream
Tea:
Candy Cane Green Tea from Trader Joe's (a new favorite around here)
Berry Herbal Tea
Sugar and spice, and all things nice,
that's what Christmas is made of.
Traditionally at teatime, one would serve three savouries and three sweets...but...it is Christmas after all. So I decided that I would count "Christmas cookies" as one sweet and chose to make three different kinds. Cookies are small after all...at least smaller than cupcakes and such. Plus I like to offer an assortment of foods, not all the sweets or savouries being just one kind. (This is how I talked it out in my head, and how I explained my plan to my mom and sister.)
So, three Christmas cookies it was...
My mom made our secret family recipe for butter cookies which was passed down from her Ukrainian "MomMom" (grandmother), and she used her mom's old cookie press which is a Christmas tradition in our home. Always has, always will be. And my goodness! These cookies are addictive; everyone who ever tries one goes on and on...and on about how good they are!
I chose to make one of my favorites...chocolate crinkle cookies, and this time I added candy cane Kiss candies. These are so fudgy and soft, which to me is a perfect cookie. (I tend to prefer softer cookies.) These are always so fun to make and I love how the powdered sugar looks like a dusting of snow...magic.
Finally, a new-to-us recipe. Kolaczki, a Polish cream cheese cookie. My Grandpa was 100% Polish and mighty proud of it, too. That part of our heritage has always been part of my life...oh, the stories I could tell you! I've grown up with specific Polish dishes being a mainstay on the meal plan and a few years ago, on a trip to Chicago, we visited the Polish neighborhood there. On a corner in a quiet part of town, there is a tiny, old shop. The workers speak Polish and all the products are foreign. When we step in the door, we feel like we've been transported to Poland, without even having left our country. It's always a favorite stop for us, and last time, we picked up a box of these cookies...homemade and fresh and very tempting. My mom remembered something similar from her childhood days of visiting her grandparents on the weekend and tasting whatever her MomMom had made for them that day. Let me tell you, these cookies were little buggers to make! They ended up tasting wonderful, but oh, they tested my patience! We did exactly as the recipe said and pinched them here and tucked them there, and yet a number of them just refused to stay closed. We did, however, end up with a good amount of pretties, which made me happy. They brought back happy memories for my mom and became a new memory for us...next time, though, we'll know more what we're doing and hopefully they'll all stay pinched closed. {{winks}}
May your days be merry and bright...
I pulled out some gingerbread houses from our Christmas village box for our centerpiece, as well as my Christmas teapot (which only comes out this time of year), added a favorite little snowglobe, a string of pearls and a few glasses with fresh cranberries floating in water and a tea candle lit on top. Simple, but lovely...just how I like it!
For the place cards, I simply cut pieces of pink cardstock and folded them in half in a rectangle shape. Using a green sharpie marker, I wrote each person's name and added a snowman sticker in the corner for a touch of cheer and delight. Each place setting had a new Christmasy mug, specifically chosen for that particular person, which they could take home and keep afterwards as a special memory of the afternoon spent together.
Remember that Christmas is about more than presents.
There are also cookies.
I also wrote what each food item was on little place cards so that I didn't have to repeat myself over and over again. It's much easier doing this, I've learned and then when your guests go home, you can send them home with boxes or containers or baggies of food and just stick the card on the package so they remember what each item is. This was the first time I did this, but I'm definitely going to remember that for future tea parties! Such a handy little tip!
Thank you, dear friends, for looking back at our Christmas tea party with me...I hope you enjoyed your visit. And I hope you are soaking up every blissful minute of this Christmas season! I appreciate each and every one of my readers, for taking the time to come and visit my cozy corner, for the kind and thoughtful comments, for sweet messages and for dear friendships made.
This space is a blessing and I am so excited to see what 2020 holds! I'll be doing a bit of housekeeping here on my blog over the next couple of weeks, changing things up and such, all as a result of a bit of a somewhat new angle and direction I want to take my blog in the future. Nothing too different, but just a more targeted focus. So if you should come by over the next wee while, please do excuse anything that's out of place whilst I'm doing a bit of rearranging.
From my home to yours...
Love and joy come to you, and a happy Christmas too!
And God bless you and send you a happy new year!
See you in 2020, dear friends!
♥