Boston Tea Party Themed Tea Party Around the World

Yesterday I introduced my new series, Tea Parties Around the World. Today I am going to share our first tea party by looking at a historical one and having a tea party with that theme. Our theme is the Boston Tea Party. (After all we might as well start local.) To start we read some books about the Boston Tea Party. Did you know there were actually four tea parties in the colonies but Boston's became the famous one? These are a few of the books we found at our library. There are a lot out there!!

On the night of December 16, 1773, about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty organized by Samuel Adams dumped about $18,000 worth of tea in the Boston Harbor in protest to the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773 which was to help save the East India Company and basically granted them a monopoly on the tea to the colonies. The colonists had demanded that the tea be returned to England, but Massachusetts governor, Thomas Hutchinson refused. He refused to allow the ships to leave the port until their cargo had been taken off them. The colonists refused to allow it on the land. The Tea Party was the colonists' solution. The men who dumped the tea disguised themselves as Mohawk Native Americans. Their disguises obviously did not work since the British Parliament's response enacted the Coercive Acts which are also known as the Intolerable Acts. These of course lead to the first Continental Congress to consider a united resistance which eventually lead to the American Revolutionary War. (Source)

Now the idea for a Boston Tea Party themed tea party came from The Totally Tea-rific Tea Party Book by Tanya Napier. The book suggests having people dress in either patriotic colors and clothes or as pretend Mohawks. Decorations should be patriotic as well. In fact if I was to have this tea party (besides for Hazel and myself) I would use some of the patriotic decorations we have made in the past. (Please excuse some of the photographs. They are from when Crafty Moms Share began and before I knew too much about blogging.)

We made two types of American flag placemats. In this one we used star scrapbook paper for the blue star section and glued the red strips onto the white paper. We covered both sides with clear Contact paper. The other placemats not pictured here had blue construction paper here and star stickers. We made utensil holders using concentrated juice containers and similar papers and stickers. The candles are made with recycled jars and tissue paper and Mod Podge. The final idea goes with the pretend Mohawk costumes and they are our Native American napkin rings. 

The book suggests serving Darjeeling tea served with milk and sugar and Boston cream pie. I suggest making things red, white and blue. When Hazel and I had ours we used our red and white espresso cups that I bought for Hazel when we did our American Girl themed birthday party. We ate cucumber sandwiches that had the bread cut with the map of the United States and flag cookie cutters. For the flag bread we put blueberries and strawberries to try to make them look a bit like the American flag. We always use some herbed cheese spread to hold the cucumbers onto the bread. We also served mini-pies from Trader Joe's. They are peach, raspberry and blueberry pies. We could also serve our red, white and blue fruit salad and red, white and blue cookies that are pictured in this round-up.

For activities the book suggests having a Revolutionary Tea-Bag Toss. This is literally throwing tea bags into buckets of water. I thought about making some bean bag tea bags for this, but we never did it. I would also add some crafts. There are two simple patriotic windsocks that we made and some patriotic star crayons that are perfect for favors. Another fun and easy craft is patriotic necklaces using straws, beads and star beads and/or buttons. Plus the necklaces are great accessories for everyone's outfit.

So those are our ideas for a Boston Tea Party themed tea party. Have any other ideas? Stay tuned for our next tea party!!