Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 31

The winner of the vintage Royal Vale teacup is …

 Susan K.! Congratulations!

Signs of spring …

I'm not feeling too great about our chances of seeing any snow here in my part of Georgia this year, so for that reason, I'm ready to go ahead and skip to spring. And the Spring 2024 issue of Country Sampler magazine has me thinking about spring even more!


The reason I bought this issue was that I'd seen on Instagram that they had a feature on vintage valentines, and of course I love Valentine's Day and enjoy decorating for it each year. Now I've got my eye out for a vintage striped cup like that red-and-white one in the photo at right.

Another clever idea? I loved how this woman used a vintage transferware platter to display her cameos. Stunning!

But my favorite idea in the whole issue wasn't even related to Valentine's Day at all. It was this glass cloche highlighting a stack of vintage chintz teacups, and you can bet I'll be recreating this design come spring!

A thoughtful tea-themed Christmas gift

Last year, my friend Susan got to make a "bucket list" trip to Paris, and she brought me back this gorgeous tote bag as part of my Christmas gift, which also included two wonderful books on tea gardening.

Isn't this design delightful? I absolutely love it and plan to really "baby" this bag so it will last a long, long time!

I'm also excited about using these gardening books to up my game with tea gardening this year!

The tea plant in my backyard has gotten way too big, so I hope to figure out how best to prune it and propagate other plants from it. On these gray, rainy days of winter, I just love reading gardening books. If we can't play in the garden right now, at least we can be armchair gardeners for a while! 

A New Year's giveaway: Vintage Royal Vale Teacup!

It's been a while since I've had a giveaway, and because I've been gathering my "winter whites and blues" (partly to help avoid the wintertime blues!), I thought it would be appropriate to give away a vintage blue teacup! This one is English bone china by Royal Vale.

I think the design is quite cheerful, and if you're the winner, I'll tuck in a selection of tea bags for you to enjoy since it is, after all, National Hot Tea Month.

If you'd like to win this teacup, please make sure you're signed in to your Blogger or Google account so that it won't say "Anonymous" is entering. Then, leave an "Enter Me" comment to this post by Friday, January 12, at 7 a.m. EST, and you'll be entered to win. Don't have a Blogger or Google account? Then feel free to email me at angelamcrae at charter dot net so that I'll have your email address and can notify you if you're the winner. And if you're a follower of the Tea With Friends Facebook page, you can enter there. Good luck!

Winter whites and tea lights

A few years ago, Alex commented on how he missed all the cheerful Christmas decorations once I took them down for the year. I agreed, and ever since, I've made an effort to keep some "winter decorations" up to add more light and keep things looking cheerful during these colder, grayer months. The tea trolley got an all-white makeover, and it was a great place to use the tree-shaped rosemary plant I found at the grocery store in December.

Thanks to a thrift store find last fall, I now have four cream-colored teacups on this rack.

I've had this Wedgwood tea light holder for years now, and it remains one of my favorite wintertime decorations.

The metal teacup tea light holder here was a fifty-cent thrift store find.

Last month, this white ceramic tree was on the tea trolley and had colored lights. Now, it's in the living room and has blue and white lights.

I found these vintage ones on Etsy last year, and they're now a happy part of my after-Christmas decor.

And this white tea set seems very happy enjoying its place in the sun. (The new snowflake tablecloth was on clearance for $7 at T.J. Maxx the other day, and I thought it was perfect.) Do you decorate for winter? And are any of you, like me, residents of warmer climes yet still hoping for some snow?

The first new tea of 2024 …

New Year's Day found me at the T.J. Maxx/HomeGoods store in Peachtree City, where I enjoyed using some gift certificates and browsing for items without the mad rush of holiday shoppers. I found a snowflake tablecloth for my January decor, some new rose prints for the house, and my first tea purchase of the year, this Raspberry Truffle flavor of Pinky Up tea.

This tea contains yerba mate, roasted elderberry, white chocolate pieces, almond, strawberry leaves, blueberry, raspberry pieces, natural and artificial flavoring, and stevia extract.

I like yerba mate and haven't had any in a while. I come across the Pinky Up brand in gift shops sometimes, usually for around $15 or so, but this tin was just $4.99 at T.J. Maxx, and I'm glad I found it, because this tea is such a delightful blend of flavors: the distinctive taste of the yerba mate and the sweetness of the fruit flavors and chocolate. This is definitely a dessert tea, and it was a great way to kick off "the year in tea."

On another note, thank you so much for your kind comments and emails about the passing of Aunt Jane. Her funeral was yesterday, and while it was a sad time for our family, we are comforted by the fact we will see her again in Heaven and by the thought that her body (and even her mind, this time!) is now whole. And here's something only you tea friends will appreciate. My sister's husband is also a pastor, and a lady at their church had offered to host our family for lunch after the service, so we headed to a charming little antique shop and restaurant that's quite close to the cemetery. It looked like a lot of tearooms I've been to over the years, and even my nieces commented that Jane would have found this quite "fancy," and it seemed a fitting way to mark her homegoing. Now … here's to a brighter 2024!

"To greet you for the new year"

 

Remembering Aunt Jane

I debated whether to mention this here, but so many of you have read my posts about my beloved Aunt
Jane over the years that I wanted to let you know she passed away on Wednesday, and my family would sure appreciate your prayers as we prepare to say goodbye to her. Daddy had asked me to put something on Facebook that night so that friends and family would quickly hear the news, and before I wrote a post, I combed through some of my photos of Aunt Jane online. I am almost always the photographer at family events, so I was happy to find a photo of the two of us enjoying my niece's bridesmaids tea at the Swan House in Atlanta last fall.

It occurred to me that some of my favorite photos of my late mother and my aunt involved teatime, which I came to enjoy late in life. I wasn't a little girl who grew up having tea parties or going to them, and I was probably close to thirty before I ever had hot tea! Thank goodness the ladies in my family had so many happy teatimes together. This photo of my mother and Aunt Jane was taken at my house back before I married, and I love how happy they look. I strongly suspect that in addition to delighting in being in the presence of the Lord, we'll enjoy new teatimes when we get to heaven, and I'd love to think this is what it looked like for Aunt Jane sometime after she got there.

And this was another teatime, at the original Tea Leaves and Thyme in Woodstock, where my mother, aunt, sister, and nieces enjoyed tea together. Aunt Jane may have been mentally challenged, but she always, always enjoyed eating out. You can probably imagine how precious these teatime memories are to me now. So I'll close 2023 with a very personal post and my wish for you and your family to enjoy a happy and healthy 2024 together!

A joyful Christmas

Highlights of Christmas 2023: Gatherings with friends and family, a cookie class with a friend, getting to drop off treats for a few dear friends here in Newnan, and on Christmas Day, getting to see our great-nephew, five-month-old Ezra, celebrate his first Christmas with all of a child's wonder!


This sweet ceramic tray was a gift from my friend Susan, and it is SO fitting for this Christmas. Those around our Christmas table were different this year. My sister’s mother-in-law passed away late in 2022, and her absence is still sorely felt. Aunt Jane suffered a great decline in health last fall and has been in a nursing home, and the week before Christmas, Daddy had to (quite unexpectedly) have a pacemaker put in! But the good news is that he got to come home before Christmas and seems to have bounced right back. So in addition to Christmas Day with our family, my sister and I went to see Aunt Jane, who is not doing well, then on the way home, I stopped by the hospital to see a dear friend who fell and shattered her hip and had to have hip surgery late on Christmas Eve!


The most peaceful hour I enjoyed this month was at the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve (photo from the First Baptist Church of Newnan Facebook page). Definitely reminded Alex and me that despite all the family goings-on, the gift of Jesus—which sees us through the good days as well as the hard ones—is the REAL gift. And I marveled that despite all the challenges this month, I can truly say it was a joyful Christmas. Was yours? Oh, friends, I sure hope so!

Merry Christmas!