A highlight of the Christmas season is when the Grands (grandson, grand nieces and nephew) come for a Christmas Tea.  Their parents come too – but at this tea the children sit at the table, and the adults stand around and graze.

Since Ever-Lovin’ and I had visited England this year, we thought an English Tea would be a fitting theme.  The Queen greeted the guest, and an Tartan teapot was by her side.  English tins – a bus, a phone booth, and a mailbox held sprigs of greenery.  The Santa mugs were found at Dollar Tree (Everything’s a Dollar).

Red plates served as chargers for the chintz and Spode accent plates.  Party favors were ornaments from the Buckingham Palace Gift Shop.

Each child also had a chocolate Santa by their plate.

A three course kid friendly tea was served.

Savories included turkey breast and white cheddar cheese pinwheels.  On the pinwheels, an herb dip was used for the spread.   The second tier held ham sandwiches with a cream cheese and cranberry relish spread.  Pigs in a blanket are always a favorite.

A lot has been happening around here, – did I mention we have a new granddaughter – so I bought most of the items for this tea.  Scones and cherry bites were the second course.  These were served with Devonshire bream, butter, and jam.  Yummy!

Super Sister made the cutest snowman cheese ball for the tea.  She first saw it on Pinterest, and it is from the Betty Crocker website.  All cheese balls should be this fun.  Grapes, strawberries and carrot sticks were also available – tried to have something healthy on the menu.  Let it be known – the fruit and carrots were almost gone at the end of the party.  Yea!

Decorated thumb-print cookies from the bakery were on the sweets menu.  I might not buy these again – too much icing.

The Santa hat cupcakes are so easy.  I bought miniature cupcakes from the bakery, put a strawberry on the cupcake, and then added a toothpick with a marshmallow for the fur on the tip of Santa’s hat.

These cake balls were gorgeous, and tasty.  (I bought them at SAMS.)

The Rudolph reindeer cookies and melted snowmen cookies are yearly favorites.  They are so easy to make.  The reindeer are Nutter Butter cookies that have been dipped in chocolate.  Pretzels are antlers, and a red-hot is his nose.  I bought the eyes at the cake decorating store.  For the melted snowmen, an iced sugar cookie was used as a base.  Then a marshmallow that was slightly melted in the microwave was added.  Super Sister did a wonderful job decorating these cookies.  Chocolate melts and a brown M&M were used for the hats.  A gourmet writer pen made the eyes, and a dried apricot was cut for the nose.  The scarf was made from Fruit Roll-Ups.

Tea and coffee were available, but we also served hot apple cider and hot chocolate.  Click HERE for the cider recipe.  It is so good with cinnamon and caramel syrup for flavorings.

This year I used a new to me recipe for hot chocolate.  It is super easy to make in a crock pot, and it is delicious! Excellent Cook Nancy sent me this recipe.  Her cousin from Belton sent it to her.  I am so glad I have friends that share because this is so good, and I get to share it with you.

I want you to have this recipe for the holidays, so I will share now even though this post is getting long.

It is called:

The Best Crock Pot / Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate Recipe

Ingredients:

1 can sweetened condensed milk – 14 ounce can

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

2 cups chocolate chips – your choice milk, semisweet, dark, or white.

6 cups milk ( I made a mistake and added 8 cups of milk, and it was still beyond wonderful)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

I added a pinch of salt – just because I always add a pinch of salt to chocolate.

Directions:

In a crock pot, add sweetened condensed milk, cream, milk and vanilla extract.  Stir to combine.

Add chocolate chips and stir so they are not clumped together.

Cook on low setting for two hours stirring occasionally.

Serve with whipped cream or marshmallows.

Enjoy!  If you like hot chocolate, you are going to love this.

As always, being with family was the best part of the day.  The children are so cute, and fun.  Love them so much!

Blessings to you and yours,

I know this is long, but…

For the printable recipe go to lanabird.com.  The print button is under the share button.  You can click on the title of this post to view this post.

Thank you for reading Lanabird.  I do appreciate you.