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IF you are going to have many parties, there are quite a number of things which you can keep on hand, all ready to use when you need them. An old trunk or box, or barrel will be nice to have on purpose for “dress-up” clothes. Put away in this all the old hats, and dresses, and shawls, in which mother lets you dress up. Then they’ll be safe, so that no one will throw or give them away by mistake, and you’ll always know just where to find them.
It is a good thing to have wooden picnic plates on hand, and these will be very useful for outdoor parties. Mother may object to your using her good china, for sometimes plates will get broken when you are just as careful as you know how to be. So you can decorate your wooden plates very prettily by cutting out the flowers or figures which are on paper napkins, and pasting them on the plates. Then they will do nicely for your lawn or piazza parties.
It is a good plan to have a supply of paper napkins and you can buy them by the hundred, or by the dozen. If mother is afraid to let you have her pretty table cloth or lunch cloth for fear it might get stained, you can get a lovely paper table cloth with napkins and little dishes, for twenty-five cents.
You might suggest to your relatives when Christmas or your birthday is near, that a set of tea cups, or plates, or little spoons would be a very acceptable present.
A folding table is very useful when you have afternoon teas on the piazza or lawn, and this can be bought for a dollar.
You can make very dainty baskets for candy and salted nuts, from little paper cases costing fifteen cents a dozen, and crepe paper at ten cents a roll. Five or ten cents will buy a pretty souvenir, and every child enjoys something to take home from the party.
So you see a party isn’t such a great deal of trouble, and I’m sure the “best mother in the world” will let you invite your friends to come and see you quite often.
If you have a party and don’t bother mother, I’m sure she’ll allow you to soon have another.
PARTIES YOU CAN HAVE WITHOUT MOTHER’S HELP
USUALLY, when mother’s friends call on her in the afternoon, she serves them with tea and wafers or cakes. Perhaps she lets you help her. Now when your friends come to see you, very likely mother will sometimes be willing for you to make a pitcher of lemonade, or a few jam sandwiches, for them. Try to serve these very daintily on a tray, using the napkins which you have all ready.
Here is a very valuable secret. When mother says, “No, I can’t let you get your refreshments ready yourself,” do you know the reason? She is afraid you will not do it tidily, and that she will have to set the kitchen in order after you have finished. So put the sugar box back in its place, don’t leave the breadboard out, and set everything back just where you found it.
Then I’m sure that the next time you ask mother she will say, “Yes.”
So if she allows you to make lemonade, or cocoa for your friends, here are the recipes:
For one glass of lemonade take the juice of half a lemon, mix with two teaspoons of sugar, and add one cup of water. To make fruit lemonade add a few strawberries, or cherries, or bits of pineapple, or slices of orange to the lemonade.
For one cup of cocoa, mix a teaspoon of cocoa with a teaspoon of sugar, and then mix with one tablespoon of boiling water. Stir it well till the lumps are all out. Put a half pint of milk over the stove (being careful not to burn it), when it “wrinkles” on the top, pour the cocoa in, and let it boil a few minutes, stirring so that it will not scorch.
SOFTEN the butter a few minutes before you use it. Butter the bread before cutting off each slice, and cut very thin. Then lay the buttered slices neatly together and trim off the crusts. The sandwiches may be filled with jelly, jam, chopped hard boiled egg, chopped meat, or nuts.
OF course you must have this party in the kitchen, and either ask your friends to bring gingham aprons, or provide aprons for them. Have nice bright tin pans ready for your candy, and get together everything that the recipe calls for. If mother is willing you can make two kinds of candy at once on the stove, one for “pulling” and one for “nut taffy.” Although you can easily make the candy yourself, mother had best be on hand when you are working over the fire. This is a good party for a rainy day.
FOR a fudge party, you will need aprons of course, and permission to use the stove, or perhaps your big sister’s chafing dish. Get your materials together, and when your friends come, you can have just as good a time as the girls do at college. “When Mother Lets Us Cook” will tell you just how to make your fudge, and then you will have one less thing to learn at college.
This is a good party for a rainy day.
MOTHER will approve of a sewing bee, you see if she doesn’t! It is a most industrious way to spend an afternoon! Invite your friends around, and ask them to bring their dolls, their work baskets, and material to work with. (Of course this is just a girls’ party! Boys are left out!) If it is warm weather, it will be pleasant to sew on the piazza or lawn, and if it is too cool for this, the playroom will be pleasant for your sewing bee. Of course the boys will say that you do more talking than sewing, but show them that they are wrong by getting some pretty clothes made for your dolls.
At the end of the afternoon clear off your sewing table, cover it with a dainty cloth and serve afternoon tea. (It is queer to call it tea, when you have cocoa or lemonade!)
Come around and stay to tea, We will have a sewing bee; Bring your needle, thread and thimble, Tongues and fingers will be nimble.]
I wish to make each paper doll A very stylish trousseau; So come and help me dress them all, I trust that you will do so.
FOR this party you will need as many paper dolls as you have invited friends, and of course this, too, is just a girls’ party. Boys are out of it! Beside the dolls, get colored tissue or crepe paper, scissors, and paste. Arrange a table, at which to work, and when all your guests have come, you can begin dressing the paper dolls. Let each choose her own materials for the dresses. If you like, you can give a prize for the best dressed doll, mother to be the judge.
Then for refreshments lemonade, or cocoa and sandwiches will be nice, or if mother is willing, ice cream and cake. The refreshments can be served on the table, on which you are working, if you like, for it will only take a few moments to clear away the work, and arrange it for a tea table.
A clothespin party’s new to you, I really have no doubt, So come to spend the afternoon, And then you will find out.
FOR a Clothespin Party you will need a couple of dozen clothespins, and plenty of colored tissue or crepe paper. In one corner of the invitation you can draw a clothespin. The clothespin party is very much like the paper doll party, except that you dress clothespins up for dolls, in the colored paper. You will be surprised to see what pretty dolls you can make. Mother can decide who has dressed the prettiest dolls, and give a little prize. Your friends will enjoy playing with the dolls they have dressed, until it is time for refreshments. You can serve “afternoon tea,” or something more if mother is willing.
At an indoor garden party, I your presence request, And I’ll really be delighted, if you’ll come and be my guest.
FOR the indoor garden party, you will need a large sheet for a screen, and plenty of pictures cut from magazines and catalogues. These pictures must be of houses, barns, stables, trees, animals, anything that will have place in an outdoor scene. You will also need a paper of pins, some large sheets of white paper, and, if you like, a couple of little gifts for prizes, such as a box of crayons or a box of paints.
After your friends have come, arrange the sheet in place, and pin in the center a large picture of a house which has been cut out. Now let your guests help themselves to the pictures which you have cut out, each taking one. For example, one child may have a barn, another a rose bush, another a dog kennel. Blindfold each in turn, and let him pin the picture on the sheet. When all have finished you will have a queer-looking landscape, for a dog kennel may be on the roof and a rose bush growing from a lawn mower!
After this game, get out your sheets of paper, scissors, and pictures which you have ready. Let each one try making a garden with his eyes open! Paste a house in the center of the paper, and arrange trees, bushes, fountain, etc., about it as tastefully as possible. Then after mother has decided which is the best, you can give the prize which you have bought.
You can serve your refreshments from a little table just as you would at a garden party.
When Christmas time is drawing near With all its mirth and merry cheer, In midst of all your Christmas joys Remember other girls and boys!
THIS is really the very nicest kind of a party to give. Just try it and see for yourself! For this you will need plenty of narrow, red (or red and green ribbon) holly seals, nice white wrapping paper, and any other things which make holiday packages look “Christmas-y.” Be sure not to forget a jar of paste. Buy some of the beautiful copies of famous paintings, which are sold at a cent a piece, and cards on which to mount them, at two cents each. If mother can let you have some colored cambric-pink or blue-you can use it for scrap-books, and you will also need scrap pictures and plenty of old magazines from which to cut pictures. Have ready a couple of dozen holly napkins, and three pounds of candy.
Write your invitations on paper with a holly decoration in the corner, and ask your friends to bring any toys which they are willing to give away.
Then when the children come there will be plenty to do. Two can cut scrap pictures from the magazines, another can make the scrap book from the pink or blue cambric.
The pictures will need to be mounted, and when you do these, just paste the corners to the mount. They must be wrapped prettily in white paper, and either sealed with holly seals or tied with ribbon, or both. These are nice gifts for a hospital.
Two other children can attend to the candy bags. Lay a holly napkin right side up on the table and put a handful of candy in the center. Now draw the corners together, and tie firmly with ribbon, around the candy. Smooth out the corners, and you will have a pretty candy bag.
The toys which have been brought will need to be wrapped nicely and tied with ribbon, so the afternoon will pass quickly. Perhaps mother will let you serve creamed chicken, peas, potato chips, ice cream and cake to your guests, for after such a busy afternoon they will surely be hungry.
This is a very good way to entertain your Sunday school class.
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