Lenten Tea Party

First of all, to Jessica at Shower of Roses, THANK YOU for your wonderful Lenten Tea Party ideas, and for linking the document for the little signs with scripture for each food.  You made this so easy for me!  Edited to add that original credit for the Lenten Tea Party ideas goes to Alice from Cottage Blessings.  Thank you so much, Alice!

We planned a few months ago to try to make it back to Houston to attend the girls' club and host the Lenten Tea Party, since no one else had volunteered for that one.  I thought I might bake some different breads and such since it was a Friday in Lent, but when I found Jessica's blog posts, I figured it would be so much easier to just follow her model.

I went to the store the night before at about 7:30pm with all four kids, after a full day of driving, taking Daddy to the airport, taking BopBop home, and visiting with NeNe and PaPa.  So it was nice to just pick up these things at the store and quickly put it all together that morning before everyone arrived at 10:00am.  Thankfully we were staying the night with the hostess, so that made things easier.  Plus she has a house full of wonderful decorations and serving platters!

Here's what I made:

"Palm on the Road"

Salad with carrots, celery, grape tomatoes, large croutons, and ranch dressing.

(most of these foods were organic, since a few of the families generally eat all-organic)

"Unleavened Bread"

Pita bread cut in triangles with our favorite creamy garlic cheese dip

"Costly Oil"

Olive Oil with Italian seasonings

"Thirty Pieces of Silver"

Water crackers with cheddar cheese cut in circles (probably should've used white cheese to make it more "silver," but after sampling it at the deli, the kids preferred the yellow cheddar)

"Gethsemane Figs"

Fig Newton cookies

 

"The Clouds of Heaven"

Strawberries with a big cloud of whipped cream

 

"Peter's Tears"

I bought Tic Tacs to follow Jessica's suggestion, but my hostess thought that sunflower seeds with salt might fit a little better.  These food items were all eaten away by the girls, with hardly crumbs left for the moms!

 Here's the table set and ready for the girls.  My friend had the purple tulle (burlap might have worked better?), and she had all these branches, as well as dried limes which we put in wooden bowls.  The girls always bring their own teacups and saucers to the meeting, while the hostess has pretty china plates and child-sized silverware (I believe from World Market) for everyone.

Ready to eat!

We started with a prayer and Lenten scripture reading and reflection.

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This was the other part of the girls' club I wanted to document.  They have such wonderful craft time.  The past few weeks they've been making felt dolls and clothes for the dolls, and on this day they started to make a quilt for their dolls.  A kind grandmother came to teach them about quilting!

 

 

 

Their finished product can be either of these designs, 

one with the embroidery and the other a bit more simple.

As they were finishing up their one 4-piece quilt square, they recited poems about love or dolls and shared a small copy with each other to put in their handmade poetry notebooks.  (They also each have an apron which they embroider with the flower for each month)

And at the end of each monthly tea party, the tea party-planning child does a presentation on a saint (or if sisters, they both present).  The girls chose St. Katharine Drexel since she has an early March feast day.  Mary Clare read about her life while Ellie held up notecards with illustrations.

They also put together a poster with information and photos of St. Katharine, and we made little holy cards at NeNe's with this quote "My sweetest Joy is to be in the presence of Jesus in the holy Sacrament."

It was a beautiful morning, and a wonderful time shared with our friends back home.  Thanks again to Jessica from Shower of Roses, Alice from Cottage Blessings, and to my friend C, the kind hostess and leader/creator of this wonderful group of girls.