We love to host around here, but 2020 has really robbed us of the joy of entertaining in our home! Luckily, we’ve gotten a few chances to host small celebrations lately.
What we’ve found is that having a tiny guest list means more energy can be given to the details, which brings me to the micro Christmas tea bridal shower that we hosted at our house last weekend. Let’s talk details.
The Table
Making the tea party shower holiday themed was certainly the right choice since I was able to call all of my Christmas decor shopping “party prep.” 😂 For the table, I ended up grabbing a piece of lighted garland from our bar in the basement and adding in some beautiful, glitzy faux poinsettias that I had from Hobby Lobby already. I added in a few antique silver teapots to make sure it was clear that this was a full-on tea party for our bride. ☺️
I found these silver chargers at HomeGoods to tie in my silver Christmas tree visible from the table and used all of our everyday white dishes and serving pieces. To make it feel like more of a formal meal, I added in our white cloth napkins (tied up with more Hobby Lobby flowers I had on hand), place cards, and custom menus so everyone knew what they were eating and what to expect next. My co-hostess brought little drawstring bags with tea bags in them to complete our place settings—such a perfect touch for our tea party!
I formally set the table based on a Google search 🙃 and made sure my late grandma’s China tea cups and tea pot were put to good use! It 100% felt like we were playing fancy tea party just like we all had done as little girls. Did you ever do that, too?!
The Menu
Because this ended up only being a shower for four people (in person), we decided to make it a full-on formal luncheon to feel as celebratory as possible! ❤️ We decided to have multiple courses and all but the dessert was brought to the table already plated. We served an appetizer, a salad, a soup, and dessert(s).
Ryan made this super easy mini chicken pot pie recipe for our appetizer course. Next up was a variation of this winter salad recipe by my lovely co-hostess/bestie. After that, we had this great, broth-based soup that Ryan prepped and made. Lastly, we devoured my slightly altered version of this tart recipe and snacked on my Christmas sugar cookies!
We all had multiple glasses of tea (SO FUN) and I made sure to keep a pitcher of water on the table to keep everyone’s water glasses full (we used wine glasses!!).
The Festivities
With just four of us, the multi-course luncheon was the activity other than some fun chatting over our tea. However, the rest of the shower was virtual, so eight other friends of the bride were able to Google Meet with us to play a couple games, watch present opening (many had mailed their gifts to make this more like an in-person shower), and catch up with the bride while they safely sipped their warm beverages of choice from their homes.
The two games were fun! One was a tea etiquette true or false quiz. We read out the statements and had everyone write down their answers, but we could have also emailed out PDFs or sent a little game card in the mail. The winner was sent a Starbucks gift card! The second was a little scavenger hunt for the virtual gals. We’d call out an item and they had to run around their places looking for it. This was a fun one for those attending in person to watch. ☺️
I hope we do formal ladies luncheons like these multiple times a year now. It was such a treat to be together sipping tea and sharing great food with such a fun and formal setup. Call me crazy, but I say use the damn China and have yourself a tea party. You won’t regret it!! ❤️