Our grandma Ila in Charlotte has a special glass cabinet in her formal dinning room that holds all of her fancy tea cups. Everything in there is dainty and pretty and oh so very breakable. Next to her very well stocked pantry, it might just be my favorite corner of her home.
Over the years, my children have pressed their little noses on that glass countless of times, and without any of us having to say so, they have just always known that things in there are off-limits.
Usually our visits to Charlotte are pretty short and we rarely run out of things to do. Recently though, we were there for over a week, which eventually meant that the off-limit zones too received a lot of inquiry and interest.
In my moment of weakness one afternoon – surely resulting from having run out of ideas on how else to keep the kids busy and occupied and away from the TV – I thought, well, why not open up the glass cabinet and take out all of grandma’s irreplaceable cups and things and play afternoon tea.
Thankfully grandma is not the one to ever say no, and so once the idea was announced, we all busied ourselves in getting the tea party ready. The kids giddily picked their favorite tea cup out of the collection. Meanwhile, grandma and I put together a spread that was sweet and savory.
Asha put on her princess dress, while the boys decided the occasion was not special enough to put on a shirt. To each their own.
Funny enough, no one drank tea. The adults had coffee, while the kids poured themselves some milk and mixed it with some chocolate powder to make chocolate milk.
According to Historic-UK, it was Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, England, who introduced the concept of afternoon tea in 1840 to hold her over till dinner time. Unlike the Duchess though, we ate enough during this snack time that everyone skipped dinner.
And to know that this moment was waiting all along behind glass!
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Feature Image: Loverna Journey via Unsplash
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