"I'm tired of always being the youngest in the family," sputtered the rebellious Linda one day. Her mother laughed at her crossness and then had an idea. "How would you like to be a grandmother for a day?" she asked. Linda forgot her crossness and brightened up, "How?" "How could I?" "We could plan a Grandmother's party and invite your friends in for an afternoon tea like Grandmother used to enjoy when she was young." And this was the start of Linda's "Grandmother's" party. To give her invitations an old-fashioned touch Linda pasted colored rickrack braid around the edges of small white cards. On the cards she printed "Come to Linda's for Grandmother's Day." When her excited guests arrived they were directed to the back bedroom where they found two large boxes - one filled with old long dresses (one for each little guest), the other filled with hats, gloves, beads, and other fancies. Around the room Linda had pinned a few old-fashioned pictures which the girls studied to get ideas about hair styles. Also they were not familiar with the black court-plaster beauty spots until they saw an old photograph. After considerable hilarity over "dressing-up" and a proper time devoted to primping, Linda announced a style show to discover the prettiest costume, the funniest, and the cleverest. Winners would be judged by the applause of the guests and awarded prizes. After all this excitement the girls went to the living room for a "Quilting Bee" - so popular when Grandmother was a girl. Each girl was given a small square of tarlatan and enough tiny squares of gay cotton material to cover it plus a tube of glue. Each girl then glued her cotton squares to the tarlatan back to make a doll-sized quilt. The girl with the nicest looking quilt was awarded a prize. Because even interested girls do not like to sit still too long, the next game was an active one. Linda put a work basket in the center of the floor and around it circles of various colored tissue paper which represented balls of Grandmother's yarn. Each girl was then given a cardboard fan (file folders make good fans). Then each girl tried for one minute to fan as many balls of yarn as possible into the work basket. Linda's mother timed each contestant and awarded a small prize to the most successful. This game is very tricky because the thin paper blows out of the basket as easily as it blows in. In Grandmother's childhood homemade feather beds and pillows were common in every home, so Linda planned a feather relay. Her guests were divided into two groups. The first player of each group was given a feather. Each girl keeps her feather in the air by blowing on it while she crosses the room and returns. She then hands her feather to the next in line. The side finishing first wins the relay. The next game was "Grandma." Linda was the first Grandma and stood with her face to the wall. The other players stood in a line across the room. The idea of the game is for the players to creep up on Grandma without being seen. Grandma could turn at any time to look over her left shoulder or her right shoulder, but she could not at any time turn all the way around. If Grandma caught sight of a player moving she sent her back to the starting point. The player who first was able to creep up on Grandma and touch her took Linda's place and became the next Grandma. Teatime came all too quickly. It consisted of thin nut-bread sandwiches cut with fancy cookie cutters, and cocoa. Old-fashioned snowballs and plenty of ice cream satisfied the sweet tooth. Snowballs, so popular in Grandmother's day, are squares of white cake frosted on all sides with white coconut frosting. Linda and her guests all decided that having a "Grandmother's" party was lots of fun. |
