Host a Child's Tea Party

Hosting a tea party is a fun way to bring friends and family together beyond that of a play date or birthday party. In my family, we're always heading off into different directions throughout the week. So, it's important for us to reconnect in a special way from time to time and this is a way that's worked for us over and over again.

How many people do you intend to invite?

Encourage parents to attend this event with their children. If they're unable to do so, be sure to make them feel comfortable with that decision and leave the invitation open for next time. Encouraging parents to attend gives them an opportunity to do a special activity with their child, get out of the house to do something with other parents and meet their children's friends. When determining your head count, assume each parent will attend with their child so you'll have enough tea and snacks to go around.

Do you want to have a theme?

We've hosted plenty "come as you are" tea parties where guests come, have some tea, and enjoy some snacks. The parents enjoy the ability to have "adult conversations" while the kids play a game or with toys. With tea parties of this nature, both boys and girls feel comfortable attending and participating throughout the entire experience.

We've also experimented with dress up tea parties. Each girl (and sometimes their mother) shows up wearing fancy hats, fancy dresses (princess costumes work well for this) and little white gloves. During the party, we talk about why we love dressing up like this and how we could do things differently the next time we throw a party like this. Then, we move on to decorating our own cupcakes or cookies to enjoy with our tea.

Other tea party theme ideas:

1: Best friends tea party
2: Costume tea party
3: Picnic tea party

What do you want to serve?

To keep things consistent, serve everyone decaffeinated tea. Offer coffee to parents as an alternative, but keep the rest to decaffeinated tea. If the children don't like how the tea tastes, offer them a choice of juice or milk as an alternative. Be sure to have enough cream and sugar to accommodate each tea cup and for the coffee for the parents.

Decide how many treats you'd like to offer or if you'd like to serve miniature sandwiches. We've hosted parties where banana bread squares, tuna fish sandwich triangles and animal crackers dipped in vanilla yogurt were served and it was a hit. You could do something more elaborate where children can decorate their own cookies or cupcakes. Or you could serve a fruit salad with crusts of garlic bread and small pieces of chocolate.

Be sure to determine your menu well in advance so you'll have everything you need n hand the day of the party. Be sure to have enough napkins and a disposable table cloth. Party stores and some super centers have very inexpensive "fancy" napkins and table clothes available.

Do you want to have a special activity?

Creating a craft has always been a good experience when we've hosted our tea parties. We've made greeting cards, we've painted (watercolor paint) pictures, we've made miniature books and we've colored "tea themed" pictures. We've also decorated paper plates, made gift boxes out of food boxes (encourage parents to bring these, if possible) and made picture frames using noodles, glitter glue and other "glue-able" objects.

Savor the memory!

Be sure to take a lot of pictures throughout the entire event. Consider purchasing a few disposable cameras and encourage parents to take pictures, as well. After the party is over, develop all the film and assemble it into a scrapbook as another activity with your children. Find paper doilies, tea clip art, tea die-cuts, tea wrappers from the party and things of that nature to embellish the scrapbook with. Another idea is to have copies of the pictures made up for each child who attended and put them into a small memory book (like those "brag books" our grandparents used to carry around).

Another "get together" idea:

Host a scrap booking party for all the parents of the children who attended the party. Encourage them to bring "tea themed" scrapbook materials and the tools necessary to assemble their page lay-outs. Be sure to tell them how many pictures will be in the scrapbook so they bring enough materials to accommodate them all. Encourage them to bring their children to either help or to have a play date with each other again.