Seasonal tea

Having celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving weekend which included family members, we jumped right into the Christmas season with a Ladies' Tea at church.  My part involved getting the church prettily decorated and then photographing the event, while Doc Leo continued to perform his magic on the sound board.

It did make a fun Saturday afternoon and a nice way to jumpstart the Season.

Risking life and limb

When one has any kind of a themed event, it really makes things nicer if the proper ambiance is created.  So before the tea, we went down to the church to help Pierre and Nancy, our pastor and his wife, make things all pretty.

A beautiful donated crèche

Some of the decorations have been purchased, but many just show up from year to year when various people move away.  So I never know what I'll have to work with, and I try to make the same things look a bit different each year.

Sometimes, the almost oldest and wisest among us have rather original ways of accomplishing some aspect of the job.

Pretty Christmas tables

Pleased with the end results

After everything was all set up and ready for the tea, thanks to other volunteers coming by, Nancy and I stood back and admired the work everybody had done to make such a lovely environment for sharing some Holiday cheer and good will.

Anticipating a lovely afternoon

Ready for tea and cakes

As the ladies (of all ages) arrived and met their table mates, it seems like we succeeded in our mission, as they all enjoyed sitting around and chatting before the program got started.

Pretty collection of tea pots

Tea time involves lots of fun home baked goodies and, of course, tea!

Oh, yummy!

Such lovely ambiance

Lindsey leading the choir . . .

When ladies get together, they create an angelic choir, so naturally we all sang Christmas carols.  In French, of course, which gives a totally different ambiance to an American ear.

. . . of angelic voices

Engrossed in the message

Then our speaker blessed us with an uplifting Christmas message.

Words for the Season

Being blessed

Perfecting the sound

Meanwhile, our resident Père Noël, the only male allowed at this ladies'-only event, provided ambient Christmas music during the social moments, then managed correct sound levels for the live music and the message.

The ladies took care of him by making sure he profited from the goodies, too.

Cozy

Afterwards, our book store volunteer sold a number of calendars and probable gift books. 

Daniela loves selling books and calendars

With the book table located next to an empty bookcase, I created a little decorated section to make her corner a little more inviting.

She was so appreciative to have been thought of.  But isn't Christmas a time to think about others?

The perfect end to a perfect day

Eventually, the third annual tea time was over until another year, and all the ladies went home.

However, there was still more work to be done to set the room back up for church the following day.

And who should be the best candidates to continue this transformation?  Why, the old guys, of course!  Now it was time for the best buddies, Papa Noël, aka Doc Leo, and the pastor, aka Pierre, to return the sanctuary to its normal condition.

I can't think of a better team!

  Merry Christmas