Dickens Christmas Tea

For several years now there have been three themes for Christmas teas that I’ve wanted to put together: Charles Dickens, Winter Wonderland, and The Nutcracker. This year I’m finally marking two of these off my list, one of which is a Dickens Christmas!

One Sunday we were meeting with our mother/teen Girls’ Club and the girls got to talking about a teacher that a couple of them have for a literature class at their co-op. “Fluffy”, as she allows the kids to call her, requires all her students read The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Somehow the book came into our discussion that day so I said, “Hey, we should have a Dickens Christmas tea this year!” And since she has been such a fun teacher for the girls (I mean, she lets them call her Fluffy! Doesn’t she sound fun!), they agreed we should invite Fluffy as our honored guest.

(Spoiler alert: Fluffy wasn’t able to make it in the end, but we still had a great tea party in honor of both Charles D. and Fluffy.)

I really wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do with the tables until I started playing around the night before the tea party, but I did know that my red dishes would most definitely be making an appearance. I just adore them! I positioned my soup taurine as the centerpiece, planning to use it for our soup course but ended up not actually using it for the soup for fear I’d make a mess all over everyone while serving it at the table.

I placed the little holly wreaths on the brass candlesticks as a nod to the Ghost of Christmas Present because they reminded me of his head wreath.

The plaid chargers were a fun splurge which I happily found for 60% off at Hobby Lobby!

I had so much fun planning our menu with English-inspired dishes. I’m not including the recipes in this post but if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll do another post with some recipes.

Dickens Christmas Tea

Chocolate Peppermint Chip Scones, Eggnog Scones, Orange Curd, and Clotted Cream

Split Pea and Ham Soup topped with Bacon

Cottage Pie and Christmas Salad

English Christmas Trifle and White Chocolate-Dipped Ginger Cookies

Teas: Nutcracker Sweet, Eggnog, and Snowflake

My daughters and I have taken a scone baking class from Smith-Byrd Tea Room in Prattville, Alabama on several occasions with different groups of friends. The owner, Beth, teaches the basic cream scone first and then shows how to make that basic recipe into any flavor with add-ins that you could possibly imagine. For this tea, my daughter and I made an eggnog scone and a chocolate scone with peppermint chips. So delicious! Instead of our usual lemon curd, I thought an orange curd would be great switch for Christmas. And it was so tasty with that eggnog scone!

I love split pea soup and thought it would be a good choice for a soup with an English flare. Our group of girls are adventurous eaters, so this didn’t scare them at all, and they each cleaned their bowls.

For the main dish I made individual cottage pies with a chuck roast and creamy mashed potatoes, and our guests brought a lovely red and green Christmas salad with bright red strawberries, feta, vinaigrette, and the most delicious, candied nut mixture!

For our dessert English Christmas trifle and white chocolate-dipped ginger cookies filled in any little bit of space, if any, left in our tummies. For the trifle I layered madeleine cookies, berry sauce, fresh berries, vanilla custard, clotted cream, and topped it all with raspberries and toasted almonds. My daughter baked her favorite ginger cookies and dipped them in white chocolate, finishing them off with some sprinkles to look like holly. So cute!

Ok, now let’s talk tea blends! In addition to the scone class, I’ve also taken Smith-Byrd’s tea tasting class which explains the different types of teas, how they’re grown and roasted to make them what they will be (black, red, green, white, rooibos), and how the different blends (flavors) are crafted. There are three tea blends I must get from Smith-Byrd each Christmas/winter. They are Nutcracker Sweet, Eggnog, and Snowflake. I made pots of each and kept them passed around the table for all the courses so everyone could try them all throughout the meal. Eggnog doesn’t have any caffeine so it’s a nice decaf option for those trying to avoid.

I have to include this chalkboard in my post because my son did the artwork for us. The day before the tea he asked if he could be in charge of doing the chalkboard which I thought was very cute.

As a gift, we had some miniature teacup ornaments for each guest and a Christmas cookbook (one per household) which had the story of A Christmas Carol with recipes throughout.

Oh, and since this was a Dickens tea, we also enjoyed discussion of Charles Dickens, the sweetness of his timeless story at Christmastime, and which movie version is best—-the Muppets, of course!!

I pray you’re having a joyous holiday season and soaking up all the festivities, warmth, and joy of Christmas.

And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us everyone!”