Tea Party Games

I spent some time this afternoon getting some games ready for Sunday's tea party. I decided to borrow some of my guessing-game ideas from our Charades parties. I try and do different things for each party, so no one will get bored with the same games. As little Miss C tells me: "Your parties are so much fun because no one knows what to expect."

With that in mind, I changed around some of the guessing games for the tea party... taken from Charades and adapted to an afternoon tea. We'll have the two young girls (C and L), plus five women. I filled up one of those small orange plastic pumpkins with buttons, covered it with clear cellophane and decorated it with purple ribbons. Guess the number of buttons, and win a Halloween-themed prize. (The one whose guess is furthest from the correct number "wins" the little button-filled pumpkin.)

For the next game, I filled up a plastic Halloween favor-bag with those little goldfish snack-crackers. They make them in different colors now, and those look more festive in the bag, which is mostly clear with little pumpkins scattered on it. Guess the correct number of goldfish and you win a prize. (And the one whose guess is furthest from the right answer gets the bag of goldfish.)

I also found more tea-lady cards..... and cut out their pictures from the greeting cards and wrote their personality traits on the backs of each. We've done this game before at another tea party, but now there are different cards to choose from, and everyone had such a good time with those before. It's challenging to sit there and look at these pictures of wrinkled, hatted & gloved elderly ladies holding teacups and make up stories about them. It's all done in good fun, and the cards make us all laugh.

For the centerpiece, I'm using some of the pieces from my collection of beaded fruit. I took all the orange, purple, and green pieces..... a good-sized pumpkin, green gourds, purple grapes and plums, oranges and tangerines..... they're all arranged in a pretty white and gold bowl in the center of the dining table. On party day, I'll put on a fresh ivory-colored tablecloth, gold and white china, purple napkins, and all the little scarecrows and pumpkin-placecards will make the table look colorful and Halloween-y.

The best part of these tea parties is seeing the look of pure joy on the faces of C and her friend L. They usually walk all around the dining room table very slowly, oohing and aahing over the china, the placecards, and the centerpiece. So easy to make a centerpiece from things that are right around the house.... there's always something around to fit the theme.

So easy to put a tea party together. C is having a good time, so is L, and so am I.