I just love Christmas traditions. The things you do each year with family or friends that become meaningful. Whether they’re funny, goofy, sweet, kind, religious or ethnic in nature, they mean something to us. These traditions are what evokes the feeling of the holiday. One of my family’s most loved traditions is Christmas Tea.
For as long as I can recall, my mom, my sister and I would go for a traditional English tea during the Christmas season. My Nani used to join when she was still with us. My Aunt comes if she’s in town. And, my cousin’s wives and their little girls will join if we are together in the same city for the holidays. It’s so much fun! We usually treat ourselves to a very fancy Christmas tea at hotels like the Ritz Carlton. For years, my girls called their winter dress coats their tea coats.
This year, the thought of not being together for the holidays has been awful. It’s been so hard that we don’t live in the same state as our extended family. We miss them all terribly. So, I was determined to not let one of our favorite Christmas traditions lapse due to Covid. We wanted to come up with a way to still hold on to this special time together. So, we decided to make our Christmas tea party a virtual one!
Now, before your groan at the thought of another virtual anything, let me tell you a little about how we executed this and truly how much fun we had! I put together these invitations for the Christmas tea party and sent them out a week in advance. It may seem silly, but an actual invitation helps to make the event seem real. I’ve linked the invite for you here. Just add your personal details and it’s all ready to go!
My mom was hosting my sister and niece at her house. While, my daughters and I were across the country at our house. One thing we did to unify the party and help it to feel cohesive was to plan the menu together. We decided on the food ahead of time and both made the same items. So, as we ooohhhed and aaahhhed over what we had in front of us, we were experiencing the same thing. This worked out really well!
I also made up these menu cards and place cards to add a bit of fun formality to our Christmas tea. You can customize them with your menu details and names. I sent these to my mom and sister to print out for their table a few days ahead of time.
We kept the menu pretty simple. Scones to start with, of course! These were a cinnamon sugar recipe and they were delicious! It was my first time making scones. I was nervous to make them, but it couldn’t have been easier! My family loved them. We served these with strawberry jam and Devonshire cream.
Next came the tea sandwiches. We made egg salad, chicken salad and a traditional cucumber sandwich. You’ll also notice a pb and j tucked in the middle at the request of my youngest! The fancy hotels in the city would often make these for them when they were little. To this day, she still loves them.
We kept things easy on ourselves by ordering the fancy, bite size pastries. So, these varied slightly between my house and my mom’s. But, it was fun to see how beautiful they all were and what each of us had to enjoy on our plates!
We both decided to set our tables in a red and white theme. I kept things simple by ordering 2 dozen red roses from the grocery store. I tucked in some extra sprigs of cedar greens that I had here and was all set with a pretty arrangement for the table!
I had no idea how long we’d be able to spend at tea since it was virtual. I was worried it wouldn’t be fun or it would be awkward on the screens. Recently, my husband bought the Amazon Echo Show for me and sent one to my mom and sister as well. He was being extra sweet knowing how much I was missing everyone this holiday season. Please note that I am not sponsored by Amazon. So, this is just a personal review for the sake of it.
We have other electronic devices and have used zoom and FaceTime a ton during the pandemic. So, I was not sold on having another thing around for the same purpose. But, I will tell you that this one is sort of a game changer. It shows a wide area on the screen. The audio is a million times better than the others. It also sits on a small stand and your don’t have to hold it at goofy angles all the time. Plus, everyone is not stuck in those Brady Bunch like boxes that will forever mark 2020! ha ha!
So, we each set one up on our table and there it sat for 5 hours! Yep, we laughed, ate, reminisced, chatted and even cleaned up together for that long. It was wonderful!
We had so much fun and it truly felt like we were all together having tea! We were still able to gather, celebrate and mark the passing of another year. It may have looked different, but this Christmas tea is one that I will always remember. We needed it more than most years. It filled us up with a little of that holiday magic. I hope you can find some of that in this very difficult season of life. Whether it’s borrowing the idea of this tea party, or using it to spark an idea on how to transform one of your own traditions. Continue to grab those moments in the making! Happy Holidays!
The image used in the invitation, place cards and menu is from here.
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