Christmas Tea Time in July

Several weeks ago I wrote a blog post about Our Poetry Tea Time that we have every Tuesday. It’s a super fun time that my siblings and I have together, reading poetry and eating treats. Well, two days ago I planned a special Christmas themed tea time! Today’s post will be sprinkled with cookies and hot chocolate as I talk about why you should make time to have your very own Christmas in July!

Christmas? In Summer?

Um, yes! You can’t have too much Christmas, can you? Christmas in July is really just a good reason to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year a little more!

There are two reasons for giving it a try. The first is that this gives you a chance to do something festive you may not have had the time for in the actual Christmas season. For example, I doubt I will have time to plan a Christmas themed tea time in December. Doing it now instead lets us make new ‘Christmas’ memories that would never happen otherwise.

The other reason for Christmas in July is that it’s just plain fun! I love Christmas so much. It was so exciting to have a special time in the middle of the year for extra celebrating, even if it was only for an afternoon.

Our Christmas in July Tea Time

I wanted this tea time to be very Christmas-y and festive. I baked a recipe for Brown Butter Sugar Cookies with holiday sprinkles on top, heated up some hot chocolate, and served everything on our Christmas morning dishes (luckily we keep them in the kitchen year round so they aren’t so hard to find).

I also brought down some winter paintings we’ve done throughout the years (snowmen, cardinals, more snowmen 😉 ) and put them along the windowsill to decorate. Then I put on the only Christmas shirt I could find and played some holiday songs. For reading aloud I brought out some of our favorite Christmas picture books.

This was my favorite tea time so far. Because, of course, everything is better when Christmas music is playing in your ears and you’re biting on a sugar cookie (even if you are sweating from the hot chocolate). We read Twas the Night Because Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the Christmas story from Luke, which altogether created quite the amount of reading, but so much fun!

A Few Christmas Ideas

Below I made a list of other fun ideas for having a Christmas in July. You could do just one of them, or make a whole day out of it!

• Bake your favorite Christmas dessert or heat a cup of hot chocolate
• Cuddle up on the couch and watch a Christmas movie. Maybe one you don’t watch as often?
• Read a Christmas picture book. There are so many choices for this! You could read one you have on hand, or look up a new one you haven’t read before.
• Listen to Christmas music only for a whole day! Whether you’re in the car, in the kitchen, or in your bedroom, this will set a very Christmas-y mood. 😉
• Study the Christmas story (Luke 2:1-21) in your quiet time

Final Thoughts

I had so much fun at this tea time! It was a blast to plan and prepare for, and the actual experience was even better. The cookies were perfect, exactly what I wanted for tea time. Just festive enough, not a lot of work, and with a very strong flavor (check out the recipe yourself! I’m sure you’ll love it too!). The hot chocolate had a cinnamon taste to it that I’ve never had before (it was given to me by a friend this previous Christmas 😉 ), but that turned out to be my new favorite kind of hot chocolate.

So in conclusion, Christmas in July Tea Time was a huge success! I’m sure we’ll try to have one again next year. 🙂

Have you ever had a Christmas in July before? Do you like the idea?