afternoon tea

Afternoon tea in the time of COVID

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Home celebrations are obviously having a moment ever since COVID reared its head. A couple years ago we started the tradition of taking my Mother-in-law out to afternoon tea with her granddaughters for her birthday. This year, we obviously couldn’t do it - so we decided to give it a try at home.

It being COVID, and me being a homeschooling stay at home mom, I tried to make things as easy as possible. So we reached out to Treats by Gale - and thank goodness we did. She was the perfect choice - she catered the tea party, complete with two types of teas, desserts, cakes, scones (and clotted cream and jam, obviously), as well as delicious tea sandwiches. I was so impressed with the food, the tea (it came as a concentrate so it was SUPER easy and fast to make! and tasted wonderful), and how easy it all was - from ordering to her delivering it right to our door the morning of the party.

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As for the set-up, the girls wanted to use the real tea set their aunt had given them, so we started with that. I then found this tea set and loved the bright colors and the fact that it was fairly cheap so we could use it for future tea with the girls and not worry about it if one of them breaks something! We used an old table cloth, some existing plates, ordered some napkins to compliment the girls tea set, and we were pretty good to go. I even managed to get roses delivered with my grocery delivery (!) so I was able to get some flowers on the table :)

My daughter hand-made the place cards and we added some PB&J to the menu for the girls, and plated all the food from Treats by Gale ourselves.

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My Mother in Law loved it and raved over the food and tea - “5 stars!” - so I’d highly recommend Gale for anyone looking to do a bridal shower, baby shower, or - like we did - just any old party! I’ll also mention Treats by Gale is a black, woman-owned business which is always a bonus cause I want to support local, BIPOC small businesses as much as possible!