Simple Gifts Ladies' Christmas Tea

A few weeks before Christmas, our ladies at church got together for a Christmas tea.  The theme, Simple Gifts, set the stage for all that we did.  We had a fun ornament exchange, which everyone really enjoyed.  Many ladies made delicious sandwiches, scones, cookies and candies.  We had three different teas to choose from, along with punch and a hot chocolate bar, complete with peppermint sticks and marshmallows.  The devotional was about the gifts that God has given us.  The favor was a bookmark that we made that had the plan of salvation on it.  The purpose of the bookmark was to "re-gift" it to someone who needed it.  We had a lovely afternoon of fun and fellowship!

 

Centerpieces

Cucumber and Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed peppermint

Window decorations

Punch and part of the hot chocolate bar

We made these bookmarks (on the left) for each lady to "re-gift".  It has the plan of salvation on it.

Scones and assorted quiche

 

Decorating a church

We have been painting and decorating the upstairs of our new church building and renovating the basement.  This building was built in the late 1890's, so it has a lot of character.  It is exciting to see the vision for the building beginning to take shape.  We chose the color Barely Beige by Benjamin Moore for the auditorium color because it compliments the white wood work throughout the room, the colors in the stained glass windows, and the carpet that was recently installed by the former owners of the building.  We couldn't believe how well our furniture from our store front matched the new place. 

I will post before and after pictures of the basement when it is completed.

From the balcony

From the balcony

Outside front entrance

 We used a color two shades darker than the auditorium for the paint color in the front lobby - Squire Hill Buff.  It makes the space feel warm and inviting.  In the future, we would like to replace the carpet in the lobby with tile, but that will come in time.

Front lobby

More of the front lobby with our church logo - CommUNITY around the Cross

We found this piece on Craigslist for $40!  We spray painted an old gold mirror to match and put them in our front entryway.

How Sweet It Is!

Every other year, our church hosts an event for the ladies.  It is usually around Mother's Day, and we call it a Ladies' Spring Brunch.  We invite all of our ladies, their friends, sisters, daughters, even the little girls 4 years old and up.  This event is something that the ladies really enjoy and look forward to with anticipation.  I like having it every other year because it doesn't get stale having it every year.  On the "off" years, we schedule a time in the spring for the ladies to go out to eat and have something less formal and takes a lot less planning.  This routine works well for us.
It's always a challenge to come up with a theme for these events.  Once I have a theme, I can run with it.  Earlier this year, I saw Mrs. Chappell's theme "Sweet, Sweet Spirit" and liked the idea, but wanted something a bit more elegant. I wanted something classy, but whimsical, so we decided to go with a theme called "How Sweet It Is!"  We used  Psalm 34:8 as our theme verse that says, "O taste and see that the LORD is good..."  Our color scheme was shades of pink, brown and a touch of lime green. 
Our centerpieces were pedestal cake plates with real, homemade cupcakes on them.  The ladies were encouraged to eat the cupcakes right off the centerpieces!  We also had small jars of candy on the tables that the ladies could  "snitch" from.  A lady in our church, who is an extreme couponer, got almost all of the candy for free!  That was a real blessing because candy can be expensive, especially as much as we had!  On some of the tables, we also had cookie jars that looked like cupcakes. We put cookies in them, and again, encouraged the ladies to snitch from the cookie jar if they wanted.  They had a lot of fun with that!  The cookie jars were prizes for those who won the games, so they served a dual purpose - always a good thing when you are on a budget!
Our menu was brunch: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, three kinds of homemade quiche, grilled chicken with romaine salad, and a chocolate fountain with different kinds of fruit, angel food cake squares, pretzel rods, and marshmallows.  Again, dessert was already on the table!  The favors were Hershey's chocolate bars wrapped in a beautiful, personalized wrapper, designed by a lady in our church.  We used hot pink and light pink Martha Stewart's tissue paper "poufs" and hung them around the room to create the whimsical feeling and add color around the room.
We also set up a little girls table for the 4-10 year olds.  It included a gift bag especially for them, and crafts for them to do during the event.  The special table makes them feel important, keeps them busy coloring and crafting, and allows the moms to enjoy the day a bit more.  My daughter McKayla, who is 8, was our Jr. Hostess for the day and she did a great job helping the girls get their food and make their crafts.
Our little girls sang the song "Apple Red Happiness, popcorn cheerfulness, cinnamon singing inside...." It's a cute song with lots of references to sweet things and was a perfect way to begin the day.We played a couple of games, had a hilarious skit about a Cupcake Eaters Anonymous group that had the ladies crying they were laughing so hard.  A ladies group sang "Surely the Presence of the Lord is in the Place Medley," and the devotional was of course on Psalm 34:8 - O taste and see that the Lord is good.  The devotional included the story of Louisa Stead, the author of the hymn, "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus."
We also had a candy guess game - we had 3 different sizes of apothecary style glass jars with candy that had been counted.  The ladies, teens and little girls had to guess how many pieces of candy were in the jars.  The person that was the closest without going over won a prize.  We also gave out lots of door prizes that had been donated by local business from our community. 
At the end, we handed out bags and allowed the ladies and girls to take home bags of candy, as if they were at a candy shop.  They had a lot of fun with that. We also had boxes so the ladies could take home cupcakes. It was a wonderful, whimsical, sweet event, and we all went home knowing how "sweet" the Lord is to us!  Here are a few pictures from the event:

Cupcake Centerpieces

Cupcake Cookie Jar

Favors - Hershey's chocolate bars

Tissue Paper Poufs

 Cupcake Centerpieces

 Candy Centerpiece for the buffet table made from tissue paper balls wrapped in cellophane, "skewered" and stuck in a 1/2 styrofoam ball

 Little Girls' Table

Table setting

Gift table with apothecary style candy jars - the ladies had to guess how many jelly beans were in the large jar; the teens guessed for the medium size jar and the little girls guessed for the small jar.  Those who guessed closest without going over won a door prize.

large jar: 1908 jelly beans

medium jar: 2763 m&m's

small jar: 284 peanut m&m's