A Children's Tea Party on a Snowy Day

My three grown sons still laugh and tell the story about the Snowy Day Tea Party. They associate it somewhere along the lines of the Boston Tea Party and Dr. Seuss's, The Cat in the Hat. Like all great family stories, it has probably grown in detail, become exaggerated in humor, but still makes all of us laugh when we recall it. It was a very snowy cold wintery blustery day in the neighborhood...

Everyone had spent the early afternoon ensconced in heavy snowsuits, with four pairs of socks, long underwear, sweat pants, and three pairs of mittens on each hand. Heads had been wrapped in face masks, long scarves and each of us and somehow still managed to slide down the neighborhood sledding hill at least fifty times! And coming home, we had built the most wonderful snowman. It had been a perfect snowy day of fun, family and play. The kind of day that we mothers wistfully recall as just simply perfect. Trudging home through the cold, everyone began talking about the proverbial hot chocolate and looking forward to steaming cups of warm, chocolately brown sweet liquid accompanied by Mom's oatmeal cookies. It sounded like the perfect ending to a perfect day...right? Well, all mothers know, that in the land of siblings and sibling rivalry, there is never a perfect day or perhaps, rarely, a perfect day.

We peeled off layers of cold wet outer clothing in the mudroom, leaving trails of melting snow behind us as we all ran to bedrooms to find dry socks and dry clothes. I could hear them going up the stairs talking about their day and each sharing stories, all at the same time, in one monosyllabic story, with each one trying to talk over the other, and the volume was growing...all the way up the stairs. I laughed, shaking my head, and went off to find my own dry clothing and to start the tea kettle.

Twenty minutes later, I heard them running down the stairs headed to the kitchen, where they came to a tumbling halt, falling over each other. One of them, Chris, said, "Ouch, that hurt, you idiot." Being the oldest, he often called the rest of them idiot, because they had not gained his level of wisdom yet. You know that level, age 12, when everyone else in your family becomes mentally handicapped in comparison to your own superior brain power. His brother, age 10, retorted back, "You're the idiot, perv." I don't know what the perv remark was about, but preferred not to..and intervened by urging both of them to go get cups for everyone.

They wrangled their way to the cupboard, pushing and shoving each other, and slowly, the pushing and shoving intensified and now their little brother, age 8, had decided to join the fray. Just as they both reached for cups from the shelves, he tackled them below their knees and they both came tumbling down. Now I have to really intervene...as the older two turned and began to pummel their little brother unmercifully. Grabbing them both, I admonished them to be nice to each other and threatened them with time out. Meekness returned to the situation, having spent numerous hours in time out, they did really understand that I meant it.

All three of them fetched their cups and took them to the table, where their lone little sister awaited them, with an angelic look on her face. Cup in hand, she smirked at them, and stuck her tongue out when my back was turned. I know this because all three of them immediately tattled on her! "Mom, Katie is sticking out her tongue...again!" I turned around and there she sat, same angelic smile, "Did not." she said/lied with the straightest of faces. "You did too, she did, Mom.." all three of them protesting vehemently and proclaiming her guilt. They awaited my wrathful judgment. with gleeful anticipation. "Come on you guys, let's have a tea party." I decided we need a new tack. How about proposing a grand fun new adventure to detract them from their natural sibling animosity?

"A tea party, that's for girls!" all three boys exclaimed. "No, no." I say, "It's a tea party because....I'll let you use the really good china...and we will set the table and play special music and ....", I'm desparate now, searching for something to hook them on this idea.."I know, we'll have donuts with our tea party." Donuts are a favorite thing, that I never let them have, well rarely. Donuts do the trick. While they proceeded to set the table, I dashed down the street in the car, to the nearest convenience store, where I bought a dozen assorted donuts and flew back to the house, praying that no blood will be smeared on the table by the time I get back.

All looks great, smiling faces sit at the table waiting me, pretty china cups on saucers await the chocolate and I carefully stacked the donuts on a beautiful floral serving platter and placed it on the table. There are candles burning softly on the mantel, casting a warm glow on the lovely faces of my now angelic children. I poured the hot chocolate from the silver tea pot, and placed the cups in front of each child.

As I pour my cup, I saw four pairs of hands reach out to the donut platter all at once. Oh no, I know in the pit of my stomach what is going to happen now..Two pair of hands reach for the same donut, one pair of hands grazes the hand of her brother, the other pair of hands is trying to find the jelly filled donuts by poking holes in several of the other donuts and all of them are yelling at each other and claiming foul play. The one donut is split in half by the two brothers fighting over it, and as I stand up to regain control..the one brother falls back, his hand hitting his tea cup and brown thick liquid flows all over my best linen tablecloth...and everyone freezes in mid-air, as their now lunatic mother is advancing toward them, whipped cream can in her hand.

Without saying a word, I proceed to aim the whipped cream at the face of the oldest child, covering his face in whipped cream..Everyone is shocked into immediate silence as I descend on the next one in line, spraying whipped cream all over her head and on down the line, I attack silently, emptying the entire can upon their faces and heads. All of them are sitting back in their chairs, mouths open, fingers shifting the whipped cream away from their eyes, and watching the massacre. I sit down calmly, pick up my cup of hot chocolate and calmly reach out and take the only perfect donut left on the platter and look around the table at each of them.

They look at me, they look at each other and at the exact same moment, we all burst into laughter. You know the kind, the kind of healing laughter that proves this family isn't really insane! We laughed and we found wash cloths and we washed faces and we cleaned the table and when Dad walked in the door and asked us all the same question he asked every day.."How was your day, everyone?" we were able to smile and say all together in one happy unison.."It was great Dad. How was your's?"

Later we would tell him about the Snowy Day Massacre, but for that day, it was our secret, the day when Mom lost her cool, but became instantly cool! They still laugh and shake their head in pride as they say, "That's our Mum. She sure kept things interesting." Every family needs stories to share like the Snowy Day Massacre. Our family tales of adventure and fun and great deeds. Share your family stories with each other, recite them until they become part of the myth of your family, because it is in the Power of Story that we discover the Power of being completely human and loved.