Macho men, humor me for a little while, please. Even you may find some memories worth reliving here.
Ladies and gents, stop for a few minutes and pretend you’re four years old.
You’re sitting around a kid-sized table or a coffee table or one of those Little Tykes picnic tables. You’re there with your best teddy bear, stuffed dinosaur or favorite action figure, your closest friend, and maybe even the sometimes annoying little neighbor kid.
On the table in front of you are some toy china dishes, or plastic or painted aluminum cups and saucers. You’ve got some lemonade – real or imagined – and handful of cookies. (No, you didn’t wash your hands before reaching in the cookie jar. Mom knows it, but she didn’t say anything this once.)
For the little bit of time your child-sized attention span keeps you there, you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. You poured the imaginary “tea” without spilling (not much anyway), you got to eat your favorite treat, licking the white stuff out of the middle of the chocolate sandwich cookie without getting in trouble for doing it, and, in hosting the party, you made someone else feel special, be it a fuzzy creature or a snot-nosed kid.
Do you ever long for carefree days like that and a time when you felt all grown up, but without the worries of adulthood?
I love it when my kids have ideas that are so smart I think to myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Recently, when my youngest daughter had her first child, her older sister said, “I’m glad it’s a girl. Now we can have a tea party for the shower.”
And, that’s exactly what we did – using cups, saucers and serving pieces from three of the baby’s great-great grandmas and a great-great-great aunt and the toy china my sisters and I used for our tea parties. The babysitter who hosted spontaneous tea parties for my daughters when they were four-year-olds was gracious and let us host this one at her home, too.
I bet if you asked, each of the four generations present would tell you the afternoon was as magical as if they were youngsters again. There is just something about a cup of tea, sweets and good company that makes you feel young, special and carefree again, no matter how old you are.
If you haven’t tried it lately, leave your cares behind, brew up a pot of tea and sit down cross-legged in front of the coffee table to sip from a china cup. We won’t even tell anyone if you dig through the attic to find that old purple dinosaur so he can join you.
While you’re at it – go ahead, eat sugar cubes together for old time’s sake.
© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012
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