A Mid-Winter Tea Party

Katie, Sarah, Sophia, Amy, Leif, Lisa and Grandma Mil enjoying an afternoon tea in the sunroom.

Yesterday, everyone came over for a Mid-Winter Tea.

In my opinion, a Mid-Winter Tea is the perfect antidote to the Wintertime blues.

But that's just my opinion.

The real reason for everyone getting together was distributing hand-me-downs (from Twops, previously from Spring), but I thought just doing that alone would be boring, so we had a Tea, too.

The Tea was just as much fun to prepare as it was to enjoy for me.

I spent yesterday afternoon baking up the sweet treats, setting up the table, and then the morning of prepping sandwiches and the like.

I hauled in the teacups (all my Grandma's passed on to me) from the shed, teapots (wedding present from Grandmom and Granddad) from the basement where my "fragiles" are stored, silver trays from all over.

I even pulled out my good silver for the teaspoons :)

And I was finally able to use a present Amy and Marnell gave us from their honeymoon trip to Italy - a gorgeous Linen tablecloth from Venice.

I hadn't the proper size table to use it with before, but it fit like a charm on the table in the sunroom.

All in all, it was a nice coming together of all of the beatiful things I've been collecting since Jason and I married, all comprised of gifts and inherited items.

But a Tea isn't just about pretty dishes, it's about FOOD!  And tea.

The Menu was Thus:

Cucumber Sandwiches
Roast Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches
Smoked Salmon Mousse on Pumpernickel Toasts

Russian Tea Cakes
Citrus Tea Cake
Dark Chocolate Tea Bread
Chocolate Peppermint Triangles

Fresh Citrus

To Drink:

Earl Grey Tea
Lady Grey Tea
Tea of Choice*
Cranberry-Citrus Punch


*A Teapot of Hot Water and selection of individual tea bags so people could choose the tea they wanted if they didn't want the Grey Teas.



I made everything except for the Chocolate Peppermint Triangles, which were cookies from Whole Foods that I cut into...triangles.

All of the sandwich and tea cake recipes came from Williams-Sonoma, with the exception of the Russian Tea Cakes. 

My Mom always used to make Russian Tea Cakes around the holidays, but my cookbooks are all in storage, so I went with a recipe from Allrecipes, which was excellent and tasted just like my Mom's anyway.

So that was good.

I wasn't keen on the Dark Chocolate Bread, but I loved the Citrus Tea Cake.

It was so much fun to put on, that I think it would be fun to have one each season - a Mid-Winter one like this one, Springtime Tea, Summer Tea, and an Autumn Tea.

Lots and lots and lots of pictures below, so keep scrolling down.

I think I put up like 6 or 7 posts today, so it's a lot.

Enjoy!