As I began shopping for holiday gifts this year I thought of favorite Christmas presents I received from my parents when I was young. I still have two that I cherish.
One is a Bentwood rocking chair given to me in about sixth grade and the other a bone china tea set. I was only nine. Thetea set was beautifully hand painted with pink roses. There was a teapot, a sugar bowl, a creamer and six little cups with saucers. I accidentally broke one cup eight years later and I cried, brokenhearted.
I don’t remember asking for either gift or expressing the need for a tea set. My mother must have known at my young age I would develop a love for tea or maybe I developed a love of tea because
I received the tea set. Either way I grew up drinking tea.
I do not remember a childhood day that my mother did not put the Corel teapot on the stove the minute she got up. We always had Lipton tea. Thetea bag would float in the hot water several minutes, then we’d have tea throughout the morning. I liked mine sweetened with lots of sugar. My mom liked hers plain. God forbid if our cups were ever switched. The taster usually made a face and said, “How can you drink your tea like that!”
This week I attended my first “High Tea” presented by the Cottage Gourmet Team of Barb Westman and Susan Hankerson. It was above and beyond every expectation. From the first taste of scones with lemon curd, I knew I was where I should always be, smiling with a china teacup in my hand.
Nine wonderful courses later, including everything from mushroom turnovers, ham and fig sandwiches and lobster-stuffed cucumbers to delicious chocolate raspberry Pavlova, Madelines and sweet potato gingerbread cupcakes, I was licking my fingers and laughing with my fellow high tea friends.
My favorite story was about holiday pictures. The lady was in a group photo where she thought the photographer said “Make a funny face” but he hadn’t, so she is the only one in the photo sticking out her tongue! Somewhere there are 10-plus copies of this picture—if you have one I’d love to see it.
Now of course we have teas of many colors and many flavors, not just Lipton, but the feeling is just the same. A steaming cup that warms your heart and your hands. The smell that clears your head and makes the day just a little bit brighter. And I go back to one of my favorite Christmas presents ever, a little china tea set that I didn’t know I needed until I found it under my Christmas tree more than 30 years ago. I guess that makes both me and the teapot antiques!
The pot is on;
the cups are waiting,
Favorite chairs anticipating.
No matter what I have to do,
My friend
There is always time
for tea and you.
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