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Sit back and relax with a Christmas tea party to relieve the stress of pre-Christmas shopping, enjoy a cozy Christmas tea with friends while you wrap presents, set out a lovely Christmas Day tea, hostess a tea during the 12 days of Christmas or have a twelfth night celebration. The Christmas Season is full of opportunities to hostess a tea for all your dear ones, so, presented here are some ideas for you to consider.
When should you start thinking of a time and place to hostess your tea party?
If you want to plan a formal high tea, you need to send out invitations 3 weeks in advance, a cozy casual afternoon tea can be planned a week ahead, and a spur of the moment tea is of course ’spur of the moment’, you can invite your friends either the day of or the day before.
Pre-Christmas Shopping
After a long day of shopping, it will be good to know you have a rejuvenating tea prepared to come home to. If you think ahead, you can have sandwich fillings prepared ahead of time, a tea tray laid out with your teapot and other accoutrements ready, so you can quickly and easily prepare yourself a nice tea. If you are going shopping with friends, they might also enjoy joining you. This is a nice opportunity for a spur of the moment tea with your friends or a comfortable and relaxing tea for one.
Cozy Christmas Tea With Friends
Invite your friends over to enjoy a peaceful afternoon tea to rejuvenate or make it a wrapping party to tackle a bunch of the gifts you bought on your shopping trip. A Saturday afternoon or a weekday evening is an ideal time to plan this.
Christmas Day Tea
Preparing a late Christmas dinner makes it so everyone just munches on basically whatever is available all day. Make up a couple different sandwich spreads, a veggie tray and a nice hot pot of tea. This gives everyone the option to have something healthier and more satisfying than trying to fill up on Christmas stocking goodies.
It also is a wonderful opportunity to use your Christmas tea set that is usually packed away. Bring it out when you get your decorations out so you have it on hand and ready to use.
If you plan on serving an early dinner, everyone is usually too full to sit down for another full meal in the evening. So, make up some of the ham and turkey into little sandwiches, a cheese and cracker tray and a fruit platter or veggie tray and a nice hot pot of tea, and let everyone help themselves to whatever they would like.
Twelve Days of Christmas or Twelfth Night Celebration
The twelve days of Christmas begin with Christmas and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th. In the liturgical sense this begins at sundown on Christmas Eve to the eve of the Epiphany (Jan5th). Especially in England, this is where the Twelfth Night celebrations come in, which happens on January 5th, the eve of the Epiphany.
