A Valentine's Tea with Friends

Because I was single for 42 years before I ever married, I spent a lot of Valentine's Days alone. In my twenties and thirties, I wasn't very happy about that, and then one day, it dawned on me that I should quit feeling sorry for myself and, instead, do something for someone else on Valentine's Day. So after my husband passed away, it was quite natural for me to revert to that behavior and do something for others. This year, I knew that my discipleship group friends loved teatime and would probably enjoy a Valentine's Tea, so I invited them over last week, and we had a great time together!

I had so much fun pulling out all of my pink stuff and decorating. I even found tiny little pink bags of Lindt strawberries-and-cream white chocolate truffles at the grocery store and decided to place them atop my heart-shaped pink plates as favors.

The teapot napkin rings I found at an antique mall a few years ago seemed like a good fit, along with some vintage pink damask napkins I found earlier this year. We sipped strawberry oolong tea as well as a cranberry-apple tea.

I went a little crazy with the heart theme, making heart-shaped cucumber cream sandwiches …

Heart-shaped cranberry-pecan scones …

Fruit skewers on heart-topped picks …

And heart-shaped glasses of strawberry fluff (pudding) topped with heart-shaped strawberries. 

I had trouble capturing the shape of the strawberries in a photo, but basically, you just slice the top off a strawberry and cut a V in the top to make it look like a heart. I had originally planned to make chocolate-covered strawberries, but when I reached into my cabinet for what I'd thought was a yellow package of Toll House chips for melting, it was instead a package of yellow rice. Oops! But my guests never knew that the strawberries were supposed to be chocolate, and what's a tea party without at least one slip-up!

And I had gotten a loaf of gluten-free bread for the friend who eats gluten-free, so she got her own little tray of cucumber sandwiches and pimiento cheese ribbon sandwiches. (The peanut butter kiss cookies had no flour in them, so those were fine too.) It was so much fun to celebrate with friends who oohed and aahed over everything on the table, and now I'm planning a spring tea!