A Fine Christmas Tea

     
                                    "Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp." ~ Author Unknown~


    My mother knows that a fine Christmas tea is best after the tree has been decorated and "smack dab" in the middle of hectic December on a Saturday afternoon. It's an intimate affair for my sisters, daughters, nieces and my small granddaughter. The invitation is by phone, to one person, spread like gossip because she thinks she has told everyone, maybe it's a queen's way. She is our queen and the promise of chicken salad in puffed pastry, tea cakes, chocolate truffles and berries commands all to a halt. For one day there will be no laundry, emails won't be answered, unfinished projects will remain unfinished.
   Over the potholes and through the traffic we drove to grandmother's house we went. Some were in heels, some  were in flats and one in the back was wearing her new pink boots, a good day for a fine Christmas tea until I was rear ended from the back! The woman behind us was laughing with her passenger, I felt rage taking over. Who drives that fast without paying attention? I have a baby girl in the back seat! There wasn't any damage, we were all fine but I couldn't release the uninvited anger towards this stranger. A stranger wearing chains and feathers around her neck with furry boots and burgundy painted hair who had a hard time talking without laughing. Our lives weren't a joke and tiny Kaitlyn said, "Wham! We got hit. I am so glad I was wearing a seat belt grandma!"

     Tea parties! I would be home safe without them, cleaning house and getting things done but we were dressed up so onward we drove. The warm sweet tea calmed my emotions and my sisters' conversation melted the memory of our wreck. Thinking back on that day, I remember my daughter commenting on the woman's excessive amount of necklaces and Kaitlyn asking in a most angelic voice, "is she going to our tea party?" to which her accessorized aunt said, "oooh, no!" This little four year old child, living as a zen master, free from judgement and purely in the moment, able to forget the wrong. I learned much from the tea of 2011.

           "tea parties were invented by little girls who one day became great grandmothers."
    1. Allow yourself one day to play without work or worry.
    2.  Invite your closest companions for conversation.
    3.  Sip your tea, never gulp, take life slowly.
    4.  A tea pot has its neck in hot water and manages to sing.
    5.  Try not to count other people's necklaces.
    6.  Laugh, laugh out loud.
    7.  Forget the past.