After your guests have come, first of all you can have a buttercup hunt. Give each child a yellow basket in which to collect candy buttercups. Mother has hidden the buttercups for you, having first wrapped each in paraffine paper. (They would be sticky if she didn’t do this!) After you have filled your baskets, and if you choose, have given a prize to the one collecting the most buttercups, you can announce a buttercup contest. This is exactly like a donkey party, except that the blindfolded one must pin the stem on the buttercup. It isn’t as easy as it would seem!
Next you can play “Buttercups and Farmer.” This is a form of blindman’s buff, for the “farmer” must be blindfolded. Take a space on the lawn about twenty feet square for the “field” and place the “farmer” in the center. The “buttercups” (who are the rest of the children) may take their places anywhere in the field. When ready to begin, the farmer says,
“The buttercups are in my way,
I’ll mow them down when I make hay.”
He is then allowed to take eight steps, while the buttercups must not move. If he touches a buttercup, and names the child who is the buttercup, that one becomes farmer. If the farmer fails to touch a buttercup he must be led back to the center of the field again.
When it is time for refreshments, the table can be set out under the trees, and if mother is willing, your girl friends will enjoy decorating it with buttercups. For refreshments you can serve chicken sandwiches, lemonade, little cakes iced with orange icing, and ice cream in yellow paper cases. A little girl who gave this party said that it was a great deal of fun.
TULIP TEA
As tulips are the national flower of Holland, a tulip tea is only another form of a Dutch party. The Dutch games may be played, and for a surprise, a tulip bed should be arranged, just as the daffodil bed was.