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You’ve been asked to host an event in your home. Maybe it’s a girl’s night out, direct sales party, or bridal shower. “We’ll take care of everything,” you’re told. “We just need a place.” And you think, “Great! I can do that. It should be a breeze.”
I have a question for you, Readers. Do you think this is realistic?
One of the reasons I have been unable to post to Tea Party Girl as often over the last few weeks is because I attended and helped host a number of events in real life. Each involved group efforts and I found myself asking this question off and on. Here’s my top three observations and it would be great to hear some of your perspectives in the comments below.
If you are hosting the event in your home people will use your bathroom, ask for your ice, and be afraid of your dog. In other words, there’s a certain level of prep, availability and clean-up that will be required of you. Unless you’ve hired a professional caterer, it is unrealistic to think that whomever is coming into your home to put on the event will remember everything and need nothing.
Because it is your home, you help set the tone. For various reasons, I assisted at two events in a row where at the beginning, everyone bunched together in a passageway and awkwardly stood around. It would have been a great help for the homeowner to direct people where to sit, turned on some music or even helped with quick glasses of ice water.
Someone has to be in the kitchen. Think of your warmest memories of events/gatherings that have taken place in homes. Whether it’s with friends or family, most likely someone spent a chunk of time in the kitchen. And they were relaxed about it. Maybe they poured you a glass of wine or cup of tea while you chatted with them from the breakfast bar. Usually the best home gatherings take place when the hostess is at ease sharing her role in the kitchen with others and conversations can happen while the food prep is taking place. If you are hosting an event in your home ask yourself how you can utilize your home’s center and heartbeat, the kitchen. If the kitchen is not a place you like to be, is it realistic to host events in your home?
Last Friday evening, my family and I experienced a home gathering that provided real refreshment for the guests. It was casual. People arrived at different times. Some were family, some were friends. The ages ranged from six-over sixty. Wine flowed, laughter erupted, and guests put their feet up. The kids swam and played basketball and hide-and-go-seek. Our hostess spent time in the kitchen making enchiladas and dishing up homemade ice cream. She seemed at ease with my husband constructing a huge salad for us all and her father’s wife making margaritas while her brother and I hung out in the kitchen discovering mutual friends and a fondness for classic literature. She even found time to sit and laugh with us on occasion.
But when all was said and done, she was the one who gathered up the abandoned drinks, discovered the muddy footprints in her guest bath from the numerous children, and swept under the table where we ate. I am guessing she and her husband didn’t calculate the financial cost, but willingly gave it. How I long to be a hostess like this to others.
So what do you think? What takes a home-based event from good to great? How much hinges on the hostess? Are you a realistic hostess?
I am running mile 22 of a marathon. Wait, I take that back. Not only am I running in the marathon, I had to organize the marathon. And after 4 decades, I am still not at ease in the particulars. But I was raised by a detail-oriented mother and I married someone less detail-oriented than me. So guess who gets the job?
Second son enters double-digit years tomorrow. I taught my last Kids Cook Farm Fresh class today. The last Mom’s Night Out organized event took place last Friday eve. The next day the cake, a packed car and I traveled 70 miles to celebrate an almost bride who’s waited almost 38 years to share her bed. Carpooling, sickness, school deadlines, laundry, award ceremonies, Boy Scouts, (need I go on?) all demand time and energy. I. must. drink. tea.
My dear, sweet, generous parents provide a week at the beach each year for my brother and I and our families. We leave at the end of next week! Somehow I will figure out how to slip away to the pier at Huntington Beach and watch the surfers for an entire morning. And I will. not. think. about coordinating anything.
While I’m gone, I have a few surprises up my sleeve for Tea Party Girl including another interview with a Tea Party Pro and some guest posts from fellow Tea Party Fans, interspersed with a few of Tea Party Girl’s favorite posts from yesteryear. And know I will be seeking out a few new Tea Party Hot Spots to tell you all about.
Can the elegance of the tea party mix with rural horses? It isn’t easy, but it can be done! I experienced it in action last Saturday at a birthday party for a friend of my daughter’s. With guidance straight from Let’s Have a Tea Party!: Special Celebrations for Little Girls (pictured above) anyone can combine two of little girl’s favorite loves: the teapot and the horse.
Not every horse tea party can start as this one did, with pony rides. But if you can pull it off, the girls will never forget it.
Even if you can’t offer real horses, most young girls own a horse or two you can use for decorations. Check out the simple centerpiece setup for this horse-themed tea table set up under a canopy outside.
The mother used blue ribbons for simple napkin rings. She served three different kind of tea sandwiches cut with a horse-head shaped cookie cutter, spinach pinwheels, and the highlight: chocolate-dipped strawberries.
And what girl can resist a pink teapot-shaped cake covered in Skittles? Notice the teapot lid, a simple round lollipop stuck in the top.
My daughter called it one of the best days of her life. I wish I had taken a picture of the darling favor bags the mom put together. She folded the top of simple paper bags and stapled them like the top of a teabag, complete with attached yarn and small paper square like the tabs on teabags. Darling! And the birthday girl loved hosting her guests, telling them to pick out their teacups and pouring the “tea” for them.
There’s only one thing I would have done differently, besides serve real tea, and that is to plan a short etiquette lesson. As the only adult around at the time when the girls sat down, I was slightly taken aback (though not terribly surprised) when one girl began to lead the others in a burping contest. What did surprise me was that when I immediately stepped in with some gentle correction and guidance, they didn’t all respond very quickly. As a homeschooling mom, I still believe young children (I don’t think any of the girls were over eight) expect adults to guide them. And I hate to think, truly, that any young girl may already be ruined for graciousness and gentility in certain situations.
Teach your children well, dear readers. Don’t assume they know how to act. The window of opportunity is often smaller than we think.
Yes, in honor of this week’s theme of Tea the Beverage at Gracious Hospitality’s Blog-a-Thon, I threw this video together with my camera phone and 12-year old son in order to share with you my three favorite teas. It is far from professional, but I contribute it anyway. After all, the heart of blogging is to move away from the pretense and perfectionism of commercialism to hear from us average folk. So on that note, feel free to take a peek at the real deal; the video is only 3.5 minutes long.
The best-selling black tea that I mentioned, Snowflake, can be purchased through my aStore. So would you be interested in more video? What’s your preferred method of gathering info or feeling engaged with an author: through reading, listening, or watching? Leave a comment and let me know.
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