My daughter chose a tea party for her 4th birthday in November. We were delighted with how much fun it was and wanted to share our ideas with others to try on their own parties. The invitations were done on the computer using an Old English font and some teapot clip art. We printed it on pastel colored paper and made sure to tell everyone to wear their favorite fancy outfit. I left the interpretation of "fancy" up to the child and we had some lovely children show up for the party. Some wore their princess costumes (Halloween was only two weeks before the party) and, since it was on a Sunday afternoon, others wore their church clothes with some special accessories like sparkly beads, tiaras, etc. We wanted to keep it intimate, like a real English tea, and had only invited 5 girls total. When the guests arrived my daughter and I, in matching dress-up outfits, greeted them at the door with very formal manners and speech - just for fun! We called everyone "madam" or "sir" (for the dads) and we enjoyed curtseying and bowing. As the guests arrived they sat down to make paper fans by folding colorful paper accordian-style, stapling the bottom and decorating with sparkly stickers and curling ribbon. When everyone was here we played a game of "Pin the butterfly on the flowers". I had drawn a large vase of colorful flowers on posterboard and clipped it to an easel. I found tiny "silk" butterflies at the craft store and used double-stick tape on them to play the game. Having more than one target on the poster made it easier for the young children and we had more than one winner. Winners got sparkly rings for their prize. After the game we all circled around the easel to listen to a big-book version of "Miss Spider's Tea Party". The children loved the story. After that I told them a very simple version of the "Elements of a Proper Tea" which I had collected from various tea house and do-it-yourself websites. We learned about the Duchess of Bedford and we all pretended to be a Duchess or a Queen and did a little role-playing such as "May I please have a cup of tea?" and "How would you like your tea? Strong or weak? Cream? Sugar?" and everyone pretended to hold teacups, saucers, sugar cubes, etc. as if we were having tea with the Queen. At this point they were all ready and excited to sit down to the table. We had decorated with real cloth tablecloth, napkins, real flowers and had fun using my real silver and cut glass serving platters. The girls felt very special! The tea was a Honey-spiced fruit tea punch served chilled but we served it using a fancy china teapot. I wasn't brave enough to let them use my china teacups but we found a suitable substitute in the clear plastic coffee cups from the party store that looked just like real coffee/tea cups. We made kid-friendly food look fancy by the way we served it. We made fruit kabobs using bite-sized pieces of apple, pineapple, grapes and strawberries alternated with mini-marshmallows. Ham and cheese cubes were served using the fancy toothpicks with the colorful paper tops. Mini-blueberry muffins were served with crystal bowls of real whipped cream to dollop on top. The birthday cake, a chocolate layer cake, was decorated with fresh strawberries and fresh mint instead of the usual kid-party sprinkles. Everyone wanted a piece with a strawberry on it! We played Moazart on the cd player as background music and it had a wonderful calming effect. When it was time to go each guest was allowed to select a cute little velvet teddy bear with a sparkly ring tied with ribbon around its neck. The bears were presented on a silver tray which made them look fancier even though they were purchased in bulk from the catalog party store! The party was such fun, no one asked where the pinata or candy or goodie-bags were. No one even noticed we didn't have ice cream! They all enjoyed being treated like little grownups and playing at being all grown up having tea like the Queen! We live in Florida we had intended to have the party on the back porch but rainy weather forced us inside. Since it was such a low-key party to begin with it was no problem to have six 4 and 5 year olds inside the whole time.