Main Library hosts tea party for moms and their daughters
By ALISON TULLY Special to the Daily Press
Tea parties always seem to bring the nostalgia out of everybody.
“My Grandfather used to pour tea in his ear at tea parties,” 6-year-old Teagen Rosso said at the Main Library’s mother and daughter tea party on Saturday.
“I think if he were watching right now, he would learn not to do that,” she added. Teagen and her mother Bri were just two of the many guests at the family-oriented event. Mothers and daughters sipped on raspberry tea poured into plastic teacups and munched on scones, cookies, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. However, teatime did not officially begin until they learned a proper lesson in etiquette.
“Now, do we always or never slosh, slush, or gargle our drinks?” Youth Services Librarian Shana Johnson asked. The question was part of an “Always or Never?” game to teach guests about table manners. Johnson also read “Peanut Butter Sandwich,” a poem by Shel Silverstein about a famous king whose jaws get shut after eating too much of his favorite snack.
“Then one day he took a bite and started chewing with delight,” Johnson read from the classic collection of poetry for children. “But he found his mouth was stuck quite tight from that last bite of peanut-butter sandwich.”
Not all guests worried about taking another bite. “Do your jaws really get stuck with peanut butter?” one little girl asked. “Because I think that’s just a fantasy story.”
After reading the poem, Johnson concluded her lesson by telling the audience about the history of tea parties, a tradition that began in the 1800s in England.
“In the first tea parties, the cups didn’t have any handles on them,” Johnson said. “The water was so hot that you wanted to keep as few fingers around it so people would hold up their pinky finger.” After this lesson, guests voted almost unanimously to hold their pinkies up for the 310.395.6765 1432 Fourth Street Santa Monica remainder of the party.
For Analisa, 6, and Martha Burns the party was a great excuse to get dressed up. “We go to birthday parties and nobody gets dressed up,” Martha said. “We like to get dressed up because clothes are so important in learning about history. You just feel differently, you have a different sense of time.”
Analisa’s English father taught her about tea parties. “I have tea parties with my tea set,” she said. “I have them with my 4-year-old brother. I usually just use water. I like having the parties because they are fun and you get to enjoy yourself.”
Trudy Miles and her five-year-old daughter Nevaeh inherited a family heirloom for their parties: an antique tea set from a great-cousin. “I’m afraid to touch it because it’s so old,” Trudy said. “You just want to hold it, but being at this tea party inspires me to start using it.”
Johnson said that she organized the event after the success of last year’s mother and daughter spa day.
“Middle-school girls came with their moms and afterwards the parents kept asking me, ‘Well what can we do with the younger ones?,’” Johnson said.
She stated that the tea party was a great way to include the younger age group.
“I also wanted to have the event because I didn’t have tea parties growing up,” Johnson said. “Most of the events are inspired by asking myself, ‘What would I have had fun doing at that age?’”
A sign-up sheet for the event was posted in the beginning of April and by the middle of the month, a waiting list had already started, Johnson said. “People were already asking me, ‘What about next year?’ ‘Are you going to have another one?’”
Jeannie Collins signed up for the tea party to spend time with her honorary daughter, Zoe, 10.
“Her mother was my best friend and after she passed away, we started referring to me as her surrogate mother,” Collins said. “I told Zoe that it meant that it is kind of like a real mom that steps in,” said Collins.
Collins added that since she doesn’t have any children of her own, she considers Zoe her only child. “The tea party is a great way to spend time with Zoe and it just makes you happy to be a woman.”
Zoe said that she had tea parties growing up with her mother and sisters. “We always put real tea in the teapot with a china tea set,” she said. “One time my sister dropped the cup and broke it. My mom didn’t get mad, she just told her to use a plastic one.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 14, 2007. Read the original PDF.