You ever decide you want something, and you get so obsessed over it that you just can’t stop until you have that precious object in your hands? For some people it’s a puppy, a baby, or that fabulous job with a corner office, but for me it was a tea set.
I’d been thinking about buying a tea set for several years. My two daughters had a pretty good mishmash of several plastic tea sets that no sane person would ever put their lips to (except perhaps after a really thorough washing), but I wanted a real tea set. One in which I could serve real tea, maybe with real little cookies (because the plastic ones aren’t very appetizing), and my girls and I could act like ladies.
I suppose I’d been waiting until the girls were old enough, but what really gave me a kick in the pants to go for this was this sneaking suspicion that my 8 year old was pulling away from me, perhaps encroaching on the pre-teen grumpy-with-attitude hormonal thing. I didn’t think I would ever write words like that at the ripe old age of 8, but there it is. I decided a tea set would be a great way (excuse?) to sit down with my daughters and make sure we stayed super close.
So, like anyone looking to buy crap they don’t really need, I headed for eBay. I spent hours poring through listing after listing of tea sets. I found new ones, old ones, extremely expensive ones, and a few that were pretty darn cute. I finally settled on this one.
Our fancy new tea set.
The picture really doesn’t do it justice. (The lighting in the dining room is pretty awful.) It’s a gorgeous gold with little Victorian couples, and the bottoms say Western Germany. It was easy to decide on this one when I showed it to my girls and they said, “Oh, it’s so BEAUTIFUL! Can we have it? Can we can we can we?”
The day after it arrived we sat down for our inaugural tea party. The girls voted to have a hot cocoa party though.
Complete with a sugar bowl full of marshmallows.
We sipped our cocoa with our pinkies in the air and called each other m’lady. It was, in short, just as fabulous as I imagined it would be.
We didn’t have any cookies this time, but I imagine the next tea party will involve a baking party immediately beforehand!
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Ashley O'Melia, Author 