Well at last we had our  Alice In Wonderland Unbirthday Tea Party this past Saturday.

we had so many problems getting it off the ground including a mixed up calendar date.

I was so afraid that it would not be successful,but I was silly to worry because it all turned out like it was a dream.

 We worked very hard making props and decorations and sketching the cards who were the gardeners, that planted white roses instead of red ones and roses to be colored red by all the ladies so the Queen of Hearts would not behead them for planting the white ones.( you have to watch the movie).

 So all the ladies in attendance colored one rose red (of course there was a prize for the prettiest one turned in.)the prize was an English china tea cup and saucer. 

 It was one of the most fun times we have ever had, it was so silly and nothing made one bit of sense. Of course that was exactly what we wanted to happen.

As I said earlier we worked very hard transforming the banquet hall into the lovely garden where the original tea party was held, and we made sure we had all the wacky  elements in the story in our story too. I even made the white rabbits watch out of 2 paper plates glued together and painted gold, we even had a spare watch made of paper plates with little springs glued inside so we could switch them around when it came time and not have to destroy the original one I made..

But we spent no time at all rehearsing anything as far as the actual turn of events at the party we just did things as they came to mind. We all watched the Disney version of the movie on Thurs evening just to refresh our memories,but that was all we did as far as the parts in the story were concerned. We each had a roll to play and it was left up to each of us as to how to put our part over to the other ladies.

The Tea Party lasted 3 hours, and the story unfolded as we were eating our lunch. It was wonderful I have never heard so much laughing and hooting as I did on the wonderful day.

The ladies of all the other chapters who were our guests jumped right in and became just as silly and goofy as my own chapter ladies were, I was kind of surprised at that because not all chapters can be as silly and spontaneous as my chapter is. But they were with the program on Saturday.

One of my ladies brought a very large flamingo to set close the croquet game he was a stuffed flamingo about 5 ft tall . In all the fooling around he fell over and some one came up to me yelling "Oh my the Flamingo has had a heart attack and needs your help. So some of rushed over to him and the others were yelling "save him save him", and a Red hatter that I had never seen before yelled "Outta the way he needs to be resuscitated(sp?)and she got down on the floor on all 4s and started pumping his heart and blowing down his throat, I'm telling you I nearly split laughing,so did the rest of the gals it was just too funny and so spontaneous.

we wrote a basket full of the stupidest riddles any one ever thought of and every so often some one would grab one out of the basket and take it to the mic and read it fo all the rest, we invited all the ladies there to come up and get a saying out of the basket and read it to everyone or just tell us something crazy on there own,and most of them got involved in the silliness of that too.

One of my members dressed as a minstrel and went from table to table singing"A Very Happy Unbirthday To You"that was also a big hit and they all joined in the song.

At the end of the day they all stood and applauded and almost ever one of them came and told us what a great afternoon it was. I just can't help be so happy about the way things turned out. I don't think it could have been better.

A very silly afternoon indeed.

Good Saturday morning ladies.

For some time I have been contemplating starting a new group in our area for ladies who want to get out and do more than their particular chapter members  are willing to do.

Then the word "Tea Tramping" struck a cord with me. But  since " Tea Tramping"seemed to be made up mostly of QMB posters in all the areas where there are groups of "Tea Tramps" it posed a problem for me since I do believe I am the only Red hatter in our entire area who is a QMB poster. So I knew I would have to make some adjustments on who should be a "Tea Tramp"

I thought about it and decided every Red/ Pink Hatter should be a "Tea Tramp" if they wanted to be.

So I wrote up an email notice and sent it to our area  "Courier"and she forwarded it every chapter in our county plus a couple  ladies who live in counties that surround us.

 It was just an email explaining what I would like to do to get us together more often and I wanted to see how many were interested in extending our Red Hat fun.

I told them if I got a good response I would set up a get together to make plans etc.

The response was overwhelming (there are lots of gals out there that want to Red Hat more than they are now)

Yesterday was our first "Tea Tramping Hat Pack" get together 17 ladies showed up. (not bad for a one week notice)Holiday Inn set everything up for us and we had a wonderful time from 11 a.m. til 1 p.m. 

Many more gals are interested but could not make it yesterday.

We a great lunch and came up with some pretty neat ideas. I  submitted a name for our group and so did one other lady.

My name was "The Tea Tramping Hat Pack" the other name submitted was "The La Tea Das"

"The Tea Tramping Hat Pack" won but we are going to use "The La Tea Das" as a name for our news letter

That way we both won.

I had a container of names ending with the word "Tea" that I gleaned off of this board in Sally's Tea Room  and I passed the container around and every one chose a "Tea "name for herself. I was kinda worried that they would think I was off my rocker when I explained this "Tea name" to them,but they really enjoyed the silliness and now we will all wear little pins with our "Tea Name " on them when we are Tea Tramping"

We will not start a new chapter because we all ready are all Red hatters who belong to or are the Queen of a chapter,we will have no dues and no membership, it will be strictly come when you can and if you can't make it this time maybe you can next time. Any lady who is already a Red/Pink Hatter is welcome at anytime as long as they let us know they are joining us for that day, or week end or what ever we are doing.

We also decided to have a "Tea Tramping" get together every 3 months so that we can plan and share news etc.

This get together will always be at the same place and the  same time.-- That way there is no work involved reserved the room for the rest of this year while we were there yesterday.  aren't we way too smart??

 The main focus of this group will be to furnish the opportunity to be able to get out and go Red Hatting even if your own chapter is not going.

One lady told us  yesterday that she wanted to go to Palm Springs last Dec., but she could not find any one willing to go with her,she went with her DH and she said it was wonderful,but it would have be super had she been with some friends----There  see!! that's where our new group would have come into play.

 We did make a couple rules besides you must "Always come in the colors"

1. You have to be a member of The Red Hat Society

2.If your own chapter is attending the event then you should go with your chapter ladies,because it is not our intention to divide chapter members, but just to make it easier for them to enjoy Hatting more often.

One of the ladies took  many pictures of all of us yesterday and she said she was going to send it to Hat Quarters,and maybe they would put it in the Fri. Broadcast.

  Who knows that would be nice,but if they don't "The Hat Pack" will still be here.