Some time after I was too old for tea parties, we acquired an antique child's china tea set with settings for six, including silverware. The beautiful German set became a family ritual. The tiny teapot held enough tea for six tiny cups of tea and the creamer was filled with fresh milk. The sugar bowl always needed refilling with every new pot of tea. I don't remember who suggested that the tea needed to be weak for the little ones, but the tea pot was rinsed with hot water and then a little brewed tea was poured into and hot water filled it up. A fancy plate held cheerios. Even when we had cookies or tea sandwiches left over from some event, the tea party food of choice was plain cheerios. They could be forked, scouped up on the spoon, and even halved with the bitty knife. All battles were called to a truce during a tea party. You couldn't insult the sibling you were mad at. You had to share the cheerios with them, pour tea in their cup, and ask them to please pass the sugar or cream. A tea party was a lot of work. You had to wash all the dishes gingerly before you set a fancy table. You had to pick flowers for a centerpiece (or make them if it was winter). You had to convince every one that it was time for a tea party. And then you had to carefully clean up and put away the set for next time. We didn't do it often- once during Christmas Break, again during Spring Break, and rarely in Summer since we went opposite ways. The last time the tea set was used was during my brother's funeral. We were together and grieving terribly when my sister, Songbird, announced, "We are having tea." We rounded up my brother's children, a five year old and a two year old, and sat down with them to have tea. We had more people than settings so the rest of us served as waiters- refilling the cheerios plate and making more tea. We laughed with his children and told stories about how their dad always ate all the cheerios and how he cried at the table if you stared at him. We told them how much he loved to laugh and how much he loved them, all interspersed with pinky fingers held high and tiny cups of tea refilled countless times. And then, my sisters and I carefully washed the set, dried it carefully, and packed it away. It was the next to the last time we were together, and it was the last time we laughed together. When my father moved, he gave away pieces of our childhood to us. Songbird got the doll house and he dropped the tea set off at my house. Carefully packed away in a small brown box labeled child tea set in my father's handwriting, I moved it from house to house. It was with a bit of relief when I discovered the box after our last move, afraid that it was one of the many things lost or broken. I set it in my great grandmother's sewing cabinet and forgot about it. It's been nearly twenty years this October since we've used it. This weekend, my younger brother's oldest was in a state band competition and his sitter for the day bailed on him. Called into to service, I panicked slightly. How does one entertain a nearly seven year old boy and his sisters (the one who will be president who is nearly five, the one who will create world peace is not yet three, and the nine month baby who smiles and dances)? The zoo? Too cold. The aquarium? Was I crazy to take four kids so young out of the house? And then it hit me... THE TEA SET! It was time to introduce the youngest ones to a family ritual. I made sugar cookie dough ahead of time and dug out small cookie cutters. We had some rocky times during the day and at one point the oldest daughter had a meltdown. I rubbed her back while she cried in her bed and proclaimed loudly, "This is the worst day of my life. I want my Mommy." With Mommy miles away and not due back until the next day, that wasn't happening. "This is unfair!" she said angrily while the two year old observed her sister's temper tantrum. "Nat mad? Nat mad? Nat mad?" she asked repeatedly. "Yeah, Nat's mad, but it's ok. She can be mad." I reminded her that she wasn't being punished and could come downstairs whenever she wanted, but she said she was staying bed until her mother got home. I left her alone for half an hour while I put the youngest two down for a nap and then rejoined her on her bed where we read an old Wonder Woman comic with lots of words and small pictures. "When your sister wakes up from her nap, I'm going to make cookies and have a tea party," I said. "I'm not," she said firmly. "Up to you," I said. "I'm going down to get the sprinkles for the cookies out." She followed me downstairs, and pulled out the containers of sprinkles- stars, hearts, chocolate jimmies, flowers, yellow sugar. Quickly she sorted out the cookie cutters as well. We spent an hour or more cutting out cookies and over decorating them with colored sugar, pink hearts, brown leaves, and white stars. While I washed the tea set and swept the floor, the cookies burned slightly. The almost five year old couldn't decide if we should use my set or hers. It was a major dilemma and I let the decision be completely hers. Finally, she decided on my tea set and her pink tray because every tea party needed a tray. The "men" joined us- the love of my life well warned not to eat the cookies after the two year old sneezed on them in a wet, drooling sneeze while he helped her work the cookie cutter, and the seven year old because--- well--- there were cookies. They joked and arm wrestled much to the future president's dismay and she wanted to banish them from the party. The two year old made me nervous as she poured tea until her cup overflowed. I quickly poured some out so she had room for more milk while the nearly five year old emptied her twentieth cup of tea and watched the milk swirl in the twenty-first cup. She brought me the dishes to wash and we talked about the tea party. "I have an idea," she announced. "How about you leave the tea set with my daddy?" But my brother had whispered a secret in my ear. He'd found the President her own antique tea set- from the fifties, china, in perfect shape, a real beauty, he said, for Christmas. It would replace the plastic set she got when she was three. "How about I keep it," I negotiated, "and bring it to your house on special occasions. That way when you visit me, we'll be able to have tea." That satisfied her. The handle has a crack in it that must have happened during one of the moves and the art work is wearing slightly on some of the plates. I'll have my brother start looking for another set for my house and let this one become a collector's item on display. As I left the kids with my step mother who was taking the night shift, Madame President told her, "This is the best day of my life." Such is the power of the tea party- it can make a terrible, horrible, rotten, no good day into something special, and now she knows the family secret- when life is unfair, have a tea party! | 
