How To Host An Easy And Beautiful Christmas Tea
There’s really nothing better than a beautiful tea party! It’s such a fun occasion to put on a cute dress and serve all the tiny bite-sized things! And champagne, of course! Oh and tea.
I’ve seen ideas for Christmas teas for years, and always thought it would be so fun! So this year I decided to begin an annual Christmas tea tradition, and I won’t lie – I already have next year’s all planned out! Today I’m so excited to share pictures and details from this year’s Christmas tea party.
Read on, or scroll to the bottom for my quick tips on hosting your own easy and beautiful tea party!
I had so much fun putting the table together for our Christmas tea. My inspiration started with the beautiful Teleflora floral arrangement. I love how traditional it is with the winter greenery, red roses and even a few pine cones! I always have such a fun time perusing the Teleflora website, knowing that I’ll get exactly what I order.
I also picked up some super fun decorated sugar cookies, and no tea party would be complete without macarons, am I right?? I got an assortment, and we had so much fun trying the different flavors and sharing what our favorites were (for those curious, the winner was the peppermint candy cane)!
I put a small bottle of La Marca champagne at each place setting, for mimosas of course, and tied each of them with a little red ribbon. I loved that guests could pour their own drinks, as much or little as they wanted, or even take them home for later!
For favors, I opted for small boxes of Frans Chocolates salted caramels. If you haven’t tried Fran’s salted caramels, do yourself a favor (ha, get it?) and order them right. now. They are by far the best salted caramels ever, and I loved gifting each of my friends such a fun and delicious favor!
Since I hosted this party around lunch time, I knew we wouldn’t survive off of cookies and champagne alone. So I put together some quick and easy tea sandwiches for us. I made them all open faced, and served them on my favorite tiered stand I’ve had for years. I did traditional egg salad sandwiches topped with sprouts, cream cheese and smoked salmon sandwiches garnished with fresh dill, and little cheese sandwiches that were a slice of parmesan cheese and a small dollop of my favorite peach jalapeno jelly! All really simple, all really easy, and all really delicious!
Tips For An Easy and Beautiful Christmas Tea
1. Decide on the color scheme/inspiration. I got my inspiration from the beautiful Teleflora floral arrangement I found online, and fashioned all the other decor around that.
2. Keep it simple silly! Don’t try to do everything at once – you’ll drive yourself insane. I opted to order the sugar cookies and macarons instead of make them myself, because I wanted to focus on setting the table instead. Especially now that I have a toddler running around I definitely know I can’t do it all, and that’s totally ok!
3. Use what you have! I didn’t buy a single new dish. My tiered serving dish was perfect for sandwiches, I used my favorite cake stand for the macarons, and the cute polka dot Kate Spade dishes I received as a bridal shower gift.
4. Use favors to help decorate the table! I love how adorable the little Fran’s chocolate boxes are, especially wrapped in their beautiful red ribbon. Everyone was so excited to sit down to a little gift at their place. They have so many box and ribbon options on their website, so whatever your color scheme is, you’ll find a favor to match!
5. Serve drinks at the table. The cute mini champagne bottles were a perfect addition to the table decor (see tip #4!), but they also made my job as hostess a lot easier! Instead of getting up to refill everyone’s glasses, I could pour drinks while enjoying the event and my friends’ company, and they were happy to mix their own drinks at the table as well!
6. Have fun! We joked at the tea about the etiquette of tea cup holding and all practiced holding out our pinkies haha! But just remember that you invited your friends over to have a good time, and nobody expects your event to be absolutely perfect. They came for you!
Thara | 28th Jun 24
Heya.
This is what I do for three days in order to make it easier. On the afternoon on the twenty third of December I serve a early Christmas lunch and tea in question here. We open only five gifts during the early morning on that day. We take a timed nature walk too. Best wishes. There is always lots of white wine. There are themed quizzes and discussion.
And the dinner is served at half past four. It consists of half of a ham, festive cake, fruit, biscuits and white wine. Our other gifts are opened. On Christmas Eve, there is the rest of a ham, a cake, fruit, pie, biscuits and white or red wine. We decide to see a film, attend a church service and nap. Then in the evening we sing. We opt for carols. And we watch a film. Or talk. It depends. Seriously. Movies are fun. No lie.
On Christmas Day this is what I do for lunch. We skip breakfast. For lunch we opt to finish up the ham, cake, pie, fruit and biscuits plus more wine. For dinner we have the smoked salmon, cheese, bread, cake and white wine. There is no turkey. We do a quick walk. On Boxing Day we always have the rest of the food to eat here. For example there are two mini salmon bagels for lunch, plus the fruit and a festive cake plus the white wine. The same applies to my dinner. Half a ham does the trick. We have a choice. I do a themed cheese board. It is fun. Photos are taken.
I have had a mini salad in recent years. There is always the fruit. And biscuits. Smoked salmon is nice in a mini bagel or cold wrap. I usually like to discuss the menu ahead of time. Some years I tend to eat some popcorn. Apart from the cooked fruit and biscuits it varies. We rarely eat ham or chicken burgers. I like to plan the food. We avoid quiche as much as possible.
A mini pie is made. This is a small chicken and leek pie. Or this is a mini ham and cheese pie. Wine is on offer. No soup however. Next year I want to try ham and cheese bagels. And something else. All details are planned in advance. There are meetings to talk.