10 Christmas Tea Ideas for Parties Near or Far

The winter holiday season is upon us, with warm fireplaces keeping us comfy, mulled spices heating on the stovetop, and seasonal tunes lilting through our speakers. One thing that keeps our spirits alight is our love for tea and tea parties. Below are some of our favorite Christmas tea ideas, with tips about how to make it virtual if you can’t be with your loved ones in person.

How to Host a Christmas Tea Party

It’s here, it’s here! Time to break out your holiday decor and invite your favorite tea friends over for a Christmas tea party. If your Christmas closet isn’t already stocked, this is a great time to check out your local second-hand stores for previously-loved home goods that you can stock up on for the season.

Start off your Christmas tea party with a charcuterie or cheese plate with nosh-worthy treats to tempt your arriving guests. From there, you can choose to stick with light appetizers or move into a full high tea offering, with tea sandwiches, scones, petit fours and more. Serve a seasonal black spiced tea, like Spice of Life, or perhaps a selection of loose teas for your friends to choose from. For a sweet temptation, check out this amazing Almond Puff Pastry that my mom makes every year.

You may be hosting your Christmas tea party virtually this year, by way of your computer screen. If this is the case, send a sweet invite to your guests by email (or snail mail) with a recipe for a tea sandwich and a suggestion for an easy-to-buy dessert (like donut holes) so that you all share a similar theme when you Zoom together.

Teen Tea Party

In days of yore, tea parties were a rite of passage for teens, but today, not many teens have the pleasure of attending an afternoon tea. Get your teens excited about Christmas tea ideas by hosting a tea party for your teen and their friends.

In the invitations, give tips on dressing up for the occasion and what will be on the menu. Include a tidbit about the history of tea parties. You can use this trivia later for a game, if you choose to.

If your event is going to be virtual, email a recipe from your tea menu for everyone to create at home. The tea party games suggested in this article will work well for a virtual event, too, such as tea trivia and tea pictionary. You can mail a small prize to the game winners after your event.

Teddy Bear Tea Party

I love this theme for a Teddy Bear Tea Party, which can easily be trimmed with Christmas tea ideas to create a holiday tea party for your little ones. (Or your adult friends...I still have a few fabric-and-fluff friends from childhood and they would be delighted to be invited to tea!)

Involve your kids in planning the party. Ask them what everyone should wear and then dress up their bears in a special outfit and costume jewelry. Spend a little time crafting invitations and delivering them to their stuffed animals. Create a special little space to host your tea party, like a sheet fort or an outside spot, weather permitting.

Young ones and adults alike will be astonished by the magic of butterfly pea flower tea. These vibrant blue flowers from Asia transform a simple tea drink into a magical blue concoction! It’s a delicious, caffeine-free tea with a unique blend of berries and a splash of creamy vanilla to make a yummy herbal tea great for any tea party or gathering.

Make this a virtual event with your mom-friends and their kids. Invite them and their stuffed buddies to join you for an informal tea gathering. Getting young ones to participate in a FaceTime call is sometimes like herding buzzing bees, but you can share a sip of tea together through technology, and then resume your at-home holiday activities as usual.

Cookie Decorating Tea Party

The holidays are a great time for cookie decorating. This Christmas tea idea is flexible for an in-person or virtual event, as well. The key to this party’s success is to have a batch of cookies ready to be decorated when your guests arrive. You can continue to bake batches as you go along, but this way everyone has a decorating task to attend to while the cookies are baking.

Alternatively, you may want to ask your guests to bring a batch of baked cookies ready to be decorated. Then, as the host, you can provide the cookie sprinkles and frostings, and other decorating baubles. You can find great food decor supplies at your local grocery or craft store.

For the frosting, you can use any flavor of the store-bought variety, or whip up a batch of this delicious buttercream frosting that’s awesome for sugar cookies.

Effortless Evening Tea Party

You might find that you and your guests will prefer to have a Christmas tea party in the evening because work and family timetables keep us busy during the day. This Christmas tea idea for an effortless evening tea party keeps the details simple and delicious.

Put your slow cooker to work for you for this party, with a super easy menu that you set up in the morning and serve hot when guests arrive. For example, try serving a simple soup with French bread, or chili with cornbread. When you “set it and forget it” in the morning, you simplify your party prep.

Nurture positive vibes by taking turns sharing at least one thing each person was grateful for that day. After the party, send out a thank you email to your guests and include the list of things for which they were grateful.

A fabulous tea for this party is the Housewarming Black Tea. With hints of creaminess and caramel and a touch of floral sweetness, enjoy this delight straight or with a splash of cream while toasting with friends, in person or via the internet.

Paris Tea Party

How about a holiday in Paris – virtually? You can create a beautiful winter tea party for you and your guests with these Christmas tea ideas for an inspired light-filled gathering.

Handmade tea light positivity pouches are designed to bring light to your guests, literally and figuratively. Use white or holiday-themed tissue paper to create a little pouch that holds a plastic tea light. Inside, place three or four light-inspired positive quotes, typed on strips of paper like fortunes from fortune cookies. Tie up the pouch with the tea lights and quotes inside. Use as place settings, or send out little crafty kits for your virtual guests to assemble at home.

Your go-to tea for this party has to be the Brunch in Paris chocolate orange tea! This is a simple blend of black tea and honeybush tea with cacao nibs and orange peel and extract. It’s absolutely delicious plain or with a splash of honey and milk.

Tea & Letter Writing Party

Get your creative Christmas tea ideas flowing while planning a holiday letter writing party. So many people would adore a hand-written letter in their mailbox during this time of year. This tea party provides space for your friends to take a minute to write some inspiring and grateful words to someone who needs them, such as seniors in a senior living community, distant family members, or kids in need of a mentor.

Set up your food and drinks on a nice, large table where your guests have some space to get crafty with their letters. You’ll want to provide an assortment of notecards and writing implements, and perhaps other items with which to embellish your letters. Consider having handy ink stamps or artsy stickers. Include thoughtful or inspiring quotes and quips, too.

This type of party works well for a virtual event. When meeting by screen, ask your guests to show off their hand-decorated notepaper and envelopes, and to read part of the letter they’re writing. Kind words are like little treasures that lift up those who receive them, and the letters in which they’re written can be revisited and cherished indefinitely.

Cozy Winter Tea Party

Oh, it’s a wonderful time of year, isn’t it? Grab your Christmas tea ideas from this article about hosting a cozy winter tea party. Fluffy blankets and pretty little fairy lights set the scene for this hygge holiday gathering. (Hygge is pronounced hoo-ga and is a Danish word for comfy.)

Serve a creamy mac and cheese soup for a starter, and a variety of roasted veggies for some sumptuous soul-warming nosh. A mouth-watering Minty Chocolate Chip Cheesecake will delight your friends’ tastebuds. Chase all this with a warm cuppa and you have yourself a perfectly hygge party, sharing time with those you love.

For a cozy party, you need a cozy tea like chamomile and citrus Cozy Tranquil Dream herbal tea. It’s a clever combination of tart flavors (rosehip, orange, hibiscus) with a melange of lemongrass, chamomile, and spearmint. It lives up to its cozy and tranquil reputation and is the perfect companion for stillness and inner reflection.

To share this Christmas tea idea with your friends in a virtual setting, invite your guests by email to join you for a video chat. Suggest everyone snuggle up on the floor of their home with a few of their favorite cozy blankets and puffy pillows, like a virtual slumber party.

Royal Purple Tea Party

You can find inspiration in this Royal Purple Tea Party to create your own Christmas tea ideas. Holiday colors lean towards green and red, white and gold, but you can design your tea party around any of your favorite colors. Keep your guest list on the small-ish side to help keep your planning simple.

Look over your recipes the night before so that you have a clear idea of how you want to plan your prep. Set your table the morning of your event so that you know if you’re missing any serving ware or dishes that you may want to put out. Consider serving a specialty cocktail to your guests on arrival. Then, settle in and enjoy your time together.

Can’t be clinking those cocktail glasses in person? Email a tea cocktail recipe to the group, like this Afternoon Tea Mimosa (also in a non-alcoholic version), and then virtually clink your glasses as you raise them to toast the beauty of the season.

Tea Party for Holiday Ease

This holiday Christmas tea idea is all about taking it easy on yourself. Put away the fancy bone china and bring out all of your brightly colored holiday mugs to fill with a selection of tummy-warming teas.

Instead of a proper pot of pre-brewed English tea, provide an array of loose teas and additives for your guests to mix and match and create their own special blend. Encourage your guests to mix and brew and taste, and provide small cellophane bags for them to take home a sample of their handmade blend of tea.

Don’t worry about sweating over a fancy baked dessert this time. Instead, pop by your local market to pick up a few bakery treats you’ve had your eye on.

If you want to make this a virtual event, suggest a special tea for your guests to brew at home, and then sip and share your day-to-day stories with each other via your computer screen.

A Season to Reflect

This year brought unexpected challenges and change. Thankfully, within this beautifully bonded community of inclusive tea drinkers you’ll find support in times of need and a willingness to share love, laughter, and tea when the road is tough. Each of these Christmas tea ideas creates space to share the best gift of all: time spent together. Together we can change the world in positively tea-rrific ways. Cheers to you and a wondrous winter holiday!