Come to the Chinese Tea Party
and help eat
Rice and Rats
Prepared and Served by Chinese Girls
at —— Church
Monday Evening, Jan. 4th.
You can stimulate interest in the heathen wonderfully by inviting them to come, with all their bag and baggage, and pay your society a visit. Have booths in the room representing the countries in which the church is doing missionary work. Let the attendants be costumed like the natives, and all the appointments of the booths suggest the life of the countries represented. When curiosity is thus piqued, information about these mission lands may be circulated by the help of questions on cards to be passed around. Write the questions in black ink, and underneath, in red ink, the answer to one of the other questions. It will require a pretty lively interchange of cards for each one to find the answer to his question.
The committee should try to make this evening as attractive as possible, and if it can be arranged all the members should appear in Chinese costume. In the centre of the church room, fit up a booth, covered with a large Chinese umbrella, and around it place small tables on which to serve refreshments. This can be made to look like a Chinese garden. Rice and rats can be served as follows: Boil rice until rather stiff and turn it into cups to cool. After ready to serve turn upside down in dishes and serve each dish with a candy rat on top. The rice should be served with cream and sugar. Also have tea and wafers. A small fee can be charged for refreshments to go to missionary purposes. Of course no one but the committee should know what the "rice and rats" is to be, as it would spoil the fun. A nice idea would be to give chopsticks as souvenirs.
CHRISTMAS COSTUME PARTY
The invitations for a Christmas party of this sort should be enclosed in white envelopes decorated with holly and should read as follows:
Master ——, as "Winter,"
and Miss ——, as "Christmas,"
will be glad to receive the "Months"
on Thursday evening,
December the twenty-fourth.
In the lower left-hand corner of each, above the address, should be indicated the character which the little guest is to represent, as, for instance: "Please represent July." Have the little host and hostess represent "Winter" and "Christmas."
When the children arrive let them find a throne built of dry-goods boxes, covered with Canton flannel with the fuzzy side out, well sprinkled with diamond dust and tufts of cotton, and above the throne a canopy made of evergreen boughs. Dip some of the boughs first in a weak solution of gum-arabic and then in flour, and sprinkle them with diamond dust; hang others in alum water until crystals form over the foliage.
Dress the little host in a suit of white cambric well bespangled with crystal beads and glass pendants. Let him wear white slippers and stockings, and over one shoulder a white shawl covered with artificial frost. On his head place a jaunty white beaver hat decorated with a long white plume.
The little hostess should wear a white dress of soft, fluffy material, trimmed with holly and mistletoe, and red stockings and slippers.