Grandma Creates Memories with Tea for Two 

   This all started in the Spring of 2002 when Joyce Holdrich’s church sponsored a Daughters of God Tea. As the event grew nearer, the ladies in charge added a request that each woman bring a tea cup that had been handed down to her through her family and to share a story about why it was so special.

   This presented Joyce with a little bit of a dilemma. She didn’t have anything of value passed down though her family, much less a special tea cup brimming over with memories. She might have just passed on the event, but she had already invited her 4-year-old granddaughter Macy to be her guest. And Macy was really looking forward to having tea with her grandma.

   But every tradition, no matter how old, had a beginning somewhere, so Joyce decided this was the time to start one. She went to an antique shop and found two matching tea cups, one for her and one for Macy. When it came time to tell a story about a special tea cup that was passed on from a prior generation, Joyce still didn’t have one. But Macy did.

   As far as Macy was concerned at the time, getting all dressed up for tea with her grandmother was just a one time event. But the following spring, Joyce bought two more matching cups and continued this self-started tradition. One year they went to Vines Botanical Gardens in Loganville. “Afterwards we went out back to visit the koi in the pond,” said Joyce. Another year Joyce and Macy sipped teas from their new cups at the Arbor Tea Room in Loganville.

   Teahouses are their first choice for this annual event, but with life being as busy as it is, some years Joyce and Macy just have to squeeze their special time together anyway they can. One year, they ended up sitting by a stream in Aiken South Carolina, with their feet in the water and sipping iced tea out of their fancy china cups.

   Macy has since moved with her parents to Texas, but that will not get in the way of this half a decade long tradition. Joyce has already made reservations on the Internet at the Willow Garden Tea Cottage in Grapevine, Texas where this week she and Macy will celebrate their sixth springtime tea together. 

   If Macy is ever invited to a ladies’ tea and is requested to bring a special tea cup that holds a special memory, she, too, might find herself in a dilemma. But unlike her grandmother, the question she asks herself will not be “WHAT tea cup?” but “WHICH tea cup?”

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