What a Tea-riffic holiday

Well, as many of you know, I love tea. Anything and everything about tea. I'm even working on stitching some tea towels with teacups, but that's another post.

Well, this year, friends and family added to that collection, some because they were aware of my passion (thank's G and MD) and some by accident. So here are my goodies ...



This beautiful Brighton night light is from George's and my "other couple half" is something like that exists. (They complete us ... Ha! Ha!) G and MD gave this to me on the 19th when we exchanged presents. George and I got the a brushed metal bar set with a bottle of Pitron. They loved it. I also gave MD two different sets of 4 icecream bowls and set of 4 float glasses that go with their 50s-style kitchen theme.



This is a Assam Teapot given to me as a present by my step-father's mom. I also got a collection of teas, but she said she didn't know that I collected teacups, she just hoped it would be something I liked. I had never heard of these types of teapots considering the ones I collect are the "classic", but it is a glass teapot with a cansister for loose tea. After putting the loose tea in you pour boiling water into the pot and it steeps until you squeeze the loose leaves down with the press, leaving behind the tea at your desired strength. I hope I have this right, but I'll have to ask the resident reader tea expert, Alice, to be certain.



Then as a present to myself I bought these two pink glasses at Hobby Lobby. They were for Valentine's Day (I know, already!) but they seemed to work with my comfy French country look in the dining as a compliment of the more elegant look of the kitchen, but that's a different post because there are some things I'm redoing in there and I'd love your opinions. The darker pink/burgandy one I got at the Dollar Store for my desk at the office. I drink coffee when it's cold outside and tea (lighter) when it's warmer outside. It was such a beautiful color, I had to have it and it was only $1.



This is one was a bit of a surprise for me. At my mother's Christmas party my granmother gave my brother and his wife as well as each of his girls envelopes with money. However, I didn't get anything. I honestly left the party feeling like crap. The next day my aunt asked me to meet the entire family for lunch before my brother and his family left. Later my mom asked if I could pick up my grandmother for lunch. When I got to her house she had a plastic bag with two "pretty, but not really me" embroidered shirts. She said she had given my brother and SIL "a couple hundred dollars" at the party but she forgot to bring the two shirts she had bought for me. Made me feel even worse. Then she said that she had found this child's tea set that she had bought when I was a child, but she never had the chance to give it to me because my parents divorced any my dad got custody. I dutifully thanked her, and genuinely loved the teaset, but felt slighted. I was really hurt by it and thought about it off and on all day. But later that night, I gained a new perspective. My brother and SIL needed the mony, they always have and that has always been what they were given. Years from now, when I look at money I will not think of all the memories of my grandmother that I cherished, but I will when I see the tea set.

So in all, it was a great holiday. Once I get home from visiting my dad's family, I will finally be able to sit down and get settled in. I guess that's when I'll finally get to relax!