Host a Fancy Nancy Tea Party

Fancy Nancy is a precocious young girl who loves anything and everything that's "fancy," whether it's frilly feather boas, piles of sparkly necklaces, sumptuous room decor, or lavish and elaborate tea parties. Author Jane O'Conner has created a character beloved the world over, and Fancy Nancy's adventures now include 80 books translated into 20 languages.

In the book Fancy Nancy Tea for Two, Nancy attends a tea party at her friend Bree's house and a precious teapot is accidentally broken, resulting in floods of tears. But never fear! Just follow these simple instructions to ensure YOUR Fancy Nancy tea party will be perfectly "splendiferous" and tear-free!

FANCY TEATIME DECORATIONS

Depending on the age of your guests, you may choose to bring out an assortment of floral china plates and cups, or you might prefer to purchase the paper version. There are a wide variety of beautiful scalloped edge paper plates and paper tea cups in colorful floral prints available on Amazon if you can't find any in your local shops:

Bring out all your pastel-toned tablecloths, napkins and serving plates, along with your nicest silverware, and don't forget to build up a lovely centerpiece with a cake stand set into a floral wreath, topped with a teapot or little teacup ornaments, or even some charming little figurines. Nancy herself would strew pearl necklaces across her table, and you can follow her example with sparkling confetti or even feathers! Remember, nothing needs to match.

If you don't have a table large enough to seat all of your guests at once, consider clearing some space and setting up several small tables instead. Small end tables or folding tables can be treated like bistro tables and covered with small tablecloths or even large floral scarves. Seat two guests at each table and you'll have your own tea house cafe!

FOOD AND DRINK MENU

Traditional tea parties include three courses:

• Scones, clotted cream and jam

• Tiny sandwiches

• Petit desserts

You may wish to focus solely on desserts at your Fancy Nancy tea party, as younger children tend to prefer these! Look for bite-sized treats that can be eaten with the fingers, like miniature brownies, tiny fairy cupcakes, mini eclairs, small cookies and the like.

If you do decide to include sandwiches on your menu, cut the crusts off and cut each sandwich on the diagonal into four triangles.

Popular tea sandwich fillings include:

• Cream cheese and jelly

• Banana and Nutella

• Peanut butter and honey

• Cucumber, butter and dill

• Butter and brown sugar

For fun, you might even like to use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut your sandwiches into beautiful shapes!

To drink, you have a number of options that appeal to younger palates.

You can offer a lovely herbal raspberry tea that will thrill your guests with its beautiful pink tint.

You can opt for a sweetened iced tea, in a fun flavor such as peach.

You might like to set out a charming pitcher of pink lemonade and serve it in teacups to drink.

Or you can serve a buffet of all three options!

FUN TEA PARTY GAMES & ACTIVITIES

Encourage your young guests to dress up in their favorite elegant outfits. Perhaps they'll come in their princess dresses from Halloween, or they'll wear a velvet cloak or a tiara or a feather boa.

It won't take them very long to eat, so the practical host should have a few activities up her sleeve to keep the fancy guests entertained! Since they won't want to muss their lovely outfits, choose games that don't require running.

SUGAR CUBE STACKING CONTEST

Divide the guests into pairs, set out a box of sugar cubes, and see which team can stack their cubes into the highest tower before time runs out.

GUESS THE TEA FLAVOR

Blindfold the guests and serve them a variety of herbal flavored teas like mint, berry and even chocolate. See if they can guess what they're drinking.

PASS THE TEAPOT

Seat the guests in a circle on the floor, play music, and pass a teapot filled with candy from person to person. When the music stops, the person holding the teapot gets to take a candy from the pot and eat it. Play until it's empty.

TEA TRAY REMEMBERALL

Set out a variety of small objects on a tray, including a few tea items plus some small toys or decorations. Let the guests look at the tray for a short time, then take it away and see who can remember the most items on the tray.

HAT DECORATING

Ask each guest to bring a straw hat, then set out flowers, lace, rhinestones and feathers and help them decorate their hats with a hot glue gun.

At the end of your party, send a lovely teacup home with your guests as a favor. You can find beautiful china teacups at your local thrift shop for as little as one dollar!

Have you ever hosted a Fancy Nancy tea party? Let me know in the comments what fun ideas you added to your event!

Fancy Nancy shares her favorite tea-party tips: from what to wear, which refreshments to serve, and how to make absolutely everything--even paper plates and plastic spoons--trés elegant! A perfect gentle and friendly etiquette teaching tool with recipe cards included!

The girls enjoy a few charming cups of tea before a disaster occurs that sets the two at odds. A party that weas so fun and elegant ends in tears and a huffy au revoir! When Nancy tells her parents what happened, they remind her of the importance of saying sorry.

But what if Bree stays mad forever?

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