MOSC Mad Hatter Holiday Tea Party

My next holiday party was the Misawa Officer Spouses' Club Mat Hatter Holiday Tea Party. This is their big event every year where we invite several Japanese women to join us for tea and games. It's usually a very formal, subdued affair laced with layers of protocol. But this year's activities chairwomen are far too creative to throw a stuffy tea party. So this year, they decided to take their inspiration from the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland.

I am SO impressed with all of the decorations! One of the activities chairwomen is a great artist and so each table was intricately and extravagantly decorated. I literally had a tree growing out of the center of my table. Feast your eyes on their artistry!

The Chesher Cat' Perch

They also set up a photo booth and recruited family members to dress as the Alice and Wonderland characters that we could take pictures with. They also made props on sticks so we would fit in. Below is a photo of ladies from my table with Alice, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit.

Our Activities Chairwomen dressed as the Red and White Queens

After a delicious lunch of gourmet finger sandwiches and other traditional tea party treats, we played some games. Each table nominated two people to go up front and compete in an express version of croquet. I love the fact that the croquet mallets were painted to look like flamingos, just like in the animated movie!

After that we had a competition to build a house of cards. I used to do this for fun growing up so my teammates let me take the lead on construction. Unfortunately, we did not win, but our new Japanese friends were very impressed with our structure.

At the end of the party, we had a gift exchange with the ladies at our table. I've attended this event all three years we've lived in Misawa, and I would say that this year was definitely the most fun!