An unexpected tea gift

I have been to quite a few Holiday Open House events in stores over the past two weekends, and when I shopped at my friend Nancy's Carriage House antiques shop in Senoia last weekend, she rang me up and then reached up on a shelf and handed me an early Christmas gift!

When I got home, I was delighted to discover the gift bag contained two new bags of tea—one a cherry rose green tea, the other a gunpowder green—and an adorable kitten tea infuser.

You know, I don't believe I've had cherry rose green tea much outside of a tea room, but it is a blend I believe must be a perennial favorite since it's so often on the menu, and it's the one I decided to try first, saving the gunpowder tea to open on another day. This one, from Metropolitan Tea Company, is as delicious (and pretty) as I remember, and I feel so pampered in having a nice big bag of it to sip all on my own!

And the funny thing about this infuser is that a display of these actually caught my eye while I was shopping that day, but I told myself no, I didn't technically *need* a new tea infuser. Yet I was drawn to it because it made me think of the cat character in my novel that came out this year. (And for the record, I am allergic to cats and don't have any. I've learned that many readers saw me in my characters, but my heroine's love for her cat is purely fictional. I'd be sneezing my head off!) But perhaps because of my fictional kitty, I find this little gal particularly adorable. What a delightful early-in-the-season gift!