Our book club has an annual Holiday tea. It’s a great time and usually very memorable. Some of our members come to every activity and some come to most and some to just a few a year so the Holiday Tea is when we get to see all our friends. And we have fun. Our monthly teas take place in public establishments but our holiday tea is usually in one of our homes. We’ve toyed with having it in a public place — less stress on the hostess — but it always is better for us to have it in a home. We get noisy and happy.
The tea breaks down into four distinct parts: the tea, the checking out of the “goodies” or the door prizes, the book swap, and the White Elephant exchange. When it’s at my house my daughter is in charge of the food. She sets the menu, makes the stuff and does all the fretting. She’s getting very good at this, maybe not as fancy as some but the food is delicious, and no one goes home hungry! My men do all the heavy lifting (and the clean-up which is worth their weight in gold). So every thing looks pretty and stays under control. Somehow they manage to handle 35 odd people in our house on one noisy afternoon. This year the dogs are staying home too, but they’ll be upstairs observing the festivities.
The part that makes our tea special is the big book trade and the “goodies.” Members have been saving up books all year or now find the excuse to clean out a few bookcases so we have boxes and boxes and crates of books to trade. We strongly encourage everyone to bring a bag — a big bag — to take home their treasures. In addition, because most of our readers like to start at the beginning of a series, we have a couple of booksellers and collectors who put together series sets which are assembled to be sold as a fund raiser. We also have door prizes that include not-yet-released books which are a HUGE hit. And we also have beautifully wrapped book bundles that can be used as presents for others (or enjoyed by a reader). Each attendee also gets a BIG bag of bookmarks, notepads and other author supplied materials. All in all, every reader at the party goes away with a collection of book related goodies to keep them going through at least two weeks, maybe the rest of the year!
So I’m curious, do you have the opportunity to have a special celebration with your fellow readers during the holidays? If so, what is it? If not, then what would be your perfect celebration?
Until next time…
Get out there and READ a book…
Sara Reyes
Join us at Readers ‘n ‘ritas November 12-14, 2010!
To share our fortune, this weekend prize will be a collection of signed books from our giveaway collection. All thos who comment will be entered!
2 Comments
sounds like loads of fun. wish I was in a readers group. May have to start one lol.
Your annual Holiday tea sounds like something I'd like to take part in.