It’s Spring Tea Party Time!!!

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Hello Farmgirl Friends!

 

The weather here in Tennessee is so beautiful with Spring having finally arrived!  All I could think of this winter was that when Spring arrived I wanted to celebrate with a tea party!

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I love this vintage Noritake China that was gifted to me years ago and it’s not very often that I have occasion to use it.  I have a 12 piece setting of everything so it is so nice when you have a tea party with 9 people – I actually had enough of it!  (I wish I knew what year this china was manufactured; I guess I need to do some research on it.  So if  any of you know, please let me know in the comments!!)

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I invited friends (and family) of all ages… starting with my grand-girls, my daughter and two friends her age, two of us in our 50’s, and two others in their late 60’s.  It was such a perfect range of ages and we talked, laughed and cried a little too.  We told amazing stories and shared from our hearts.

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I bought flowers at Costco, added some of my apple blossoms that are blooming right now, and put them in vintage mason jars for the centerpieces.  I don’t like flower centerpieces that are so tall that you can’t see over them to visit, so I cut the stems to keep them a bit shorter!

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And then came the food!  I didn’t want to clutter the table with food so I decided to have my two grand-girls serve us!  Oh my goodness did they ever love that and they did such an amazing job.  (And WHY do I not have a picture of them serving us??)  They still got to sit and eat in between serving and it was so fun for them to be a part of it.

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So the best thing about this meal is that I was able to do a lot of it the day before.  That way on Tea Party day all I had to do was assemble everything.  I’m a list maker so I had my detailed list and just checked it all off as I went and it took the stress and hurry out of it completely!

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So I know you’re wondering what I fixed for the meal!  I made a four course meal consisting of the following:

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This salad may not look like anything special but oh my goodness, it was good.  I changed it up a bit by using pecans instead of walnuts and added the feta cheese.  Perfect combination.

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Homemade biscuits made the little ham sandwiches so good.  (I’ve blogged about my biscuit recipe here.  It is the BEST!!)  And those little BLT sandwiches???  I could’ve eaten three!  (I might’ve, actually!)

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Our chickens have been laying SO many eggs with Spring arrival and an Angel Food Cake is the best thing to make when you have a counter full of eggs!  (It uses a dozen egg whites!) I love to cut Angel Food Cake into large bite pieces instead of serving a slice.

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It was the absolute perfect spring party!  I enjoyed setting the table, making the food, arranging the flowers, and enjoying the sweet company!

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So I’m going to end this blog post on a really hilarious note.  We’ve been having a stink bug infestation here in Tennessee and I guess one decided to join the party.  BUT I never saw this crazy thing; even in taking the pictures of my table, editing them and posting them to my Instagram.  But this week we had company for Sunday lunch and the husband to Jenna, one of the girls’s that came to the party, commented to me about the stink bug that was in a cup at my tea party. In my confusion he went on to tell me that he had seen the pictures and noticed a black spot on the cup and zoomed in to see what it was!!!!  We were all laughing SO HARD at him!!  What man zooms in to see what the black spot is on the inside of a china cup??!!!  Well…. in hindsight I realized he IS an engineer and their brains do work a little differently!!!  But I had to share the zoomed in photo of the stink bug that joined the tea party!  Smile!

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Thank you to all of you amazing readers that left such perfect comments on my post last month.  I loved reading them all and thinking about all the sweet letters you will be writing this year, and why.  It really encouraged me to keep with my goal of letter writing.

And the randomly selected WINNER to the giveaway of a set of my note cards is:

Maxine Jelinek 

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Enjoy your beautiful Spring, friends.  Its time for a tea party!

Until our gravel roads cross again… so long.

Dori

  1. Carol says:

    Hi Dory … What a great tea party you had! I love the idea of having the grandgirls serve your guests. Your menu was great … everything looked so yummy. And the table was beautiful. You have the LILYBELL Noritake dinnerware! I found it on the Replacements, LTD website: https://www.replacements.com/china-noritake-lilybell/c/67094. It is beautiful!
    I’m so jealous of all the flowers … we are not quite that far along in central Pennsylvania. Happy Spring! Carol

  2. Elisabeth Perkins says:

    Lovely tea party!!! It makes me want to have one!! Those little BLT sandwiches were the cutest idea!
    Looks like everyone enjoyed the tea party, even the stink bug, haha!

  3. Laura says:

    What a great idea! I love everything about it! The photos alone make my heart happy.

  4. Treese Hellstrom says:

    I enjoyed the pictures. It is definitely looking like spring there. We are still getting hit here in Colorado by snow storms. All our flowers are still hiding from the snow and cold.
    Treese/Colorado Cowgirl.

  5. Cyndie Gray says:

    What a lovely “celebrate spring” gathering! Hosting a tea party is one my most favorite things to do. Your china is beautiful & the table looked gorgeous! I can just picture your grand girls’ joy in serving you & your guests~they are such sweet girls♥️
    BTW…I have continued posting handwritten notes to my four young adult grands per my sharing last month, once a month I send a handmade card to them with a handwritten note.

  6. donna herczeg says:

    Loved your post about your tea party! Everything looked lovely!
    I am going to a tea party today and we are going to look at our hostesses collection of tea cups and she will tell us their story of where they came from.
    I used to do alot of tea parties with my girlfriend Anne about 25 years ago. We even wore pretty hats and dressed up. We both collected vintage China, so it was fun to get a chance to use them. Whichever one of us hosted the party invited most of their friends and family, and then the other would help with baking and serving. They were quite memorable events and I think of them with nostalgia. It was a sweet time in our memories.

  7. Colleen Maki-Varney says:

    What a wonderful gathering of ladies! Reminds me of how my Grandma Annie would set the table with all of her beautiful teacups and china, some from Finland (our ancestry). She served up a “feast” quite similar to yours. The granddaughters must feel very special.

  8. Diane Loehr says:

    Love a good Tea Party. I miss the one that we have in the Fall due to Covid. There are about 10 tables and every table is a different theme. People get really creative. I host one of the tables and love having the ladies join me. Everything looks really good to eat. Wish I could have been invited, less the stink bug! 🙂 Have a great day – Diane

  9. Joy says:

    I really enjoyed reading your post, because my grandmother had a set of that same china. My mother inherited it, and now my brother has it – but seeing it on your table brought back fond memories. Your tea party looks lovely, in spite of the stinkbug (oh, those engineers!). Thank you for sharing it.

  10. Carmen Anderson says:

    Happy Spring to you…still awaiting for it to arrive in Eastern Idaho…lol…it might by October . Thank you for a lovely article

    There is a very good site you might want to check out to locate if possible pieces for your china pattern I’ve used it for my retired Noritake pattern as well as other items over the years.

    Here is the website:
    http://www.replacements.com

    Also look on ack of your pixels it might give you the name of pattern

    • Carmen Anderson says:

      Please excuse spelling and grammatical errors my phone changes words etc constantly

      Look on back of china pieces for name of pattern

  11. Eileen Prose says:

    The table was beautiful and the menu scrumptious!

  12. Linda Marie Hilburger says:

    Beautiful Tea Party. Wonderful! Thank you for sharing.

  13. Marilyn says:

    Thank You for sharing this lovely tea party. Enjoy the Spring weather.
    HAPPY SPRING
    HAPPY EASTER
    Joan,Marion and Marilyn

  14. Denise says:

    Everything looked delightful & yummy too! But that was hilarious about the stick bug!! I’m in Tennessee but I haven’t seen any stink bugs. Course now that I’ve said that I’ll probably see a lot! Enjoyed your post!!

  15. Kristine Pope says:

    I love doing Tea Parties! I am so inspired by this blog..I think I’m going to start planning a Tea Party myself; quite soon!

  16. Valerie Sijan says:

    You set a beautiful table, lady! The food looks fabulous as well!
    Thanks for sharing an inspirational tea party!

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