We have curated some fun additions for your residents to appreciate the literary adventures of Alice in Wonderland!

The most famous scene in the book and film is of course the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party—so take this as inspiration when designing the food and drink to go with these Alice in Wonderland party ideas.

Have a tea party, but make it MAD! Drink iced tea in traditional tea cups.

Instead of regular black tea, fruit-flavored ice teas like Snapple, which make flavors such as raspberry or peach tea can be refreshing during the summer. Just bear in mind, that most of these contain caffeine, although they do make a pomegranate raspberry red tea, which is caffeine-free. Alternatively, you can serve things like pink lemonade or other drinks but serve them in little teacups with saucers so that it feels like a tea party, but the flavor in the cup is unexpected.

Another option is to serve some of the drinks at your Alice in Wonderland party in little glass potion bottles with ‘Drink Me’ labels on: Pick up a pack of 12 assorted glass craft bottles, and then fill them using this recipe for Blue Bubblegum Soda. The blue color is perfect to look like a potion and bubblegum soda is suitably surreal to fit in with the Wonderland theme.

Finally, write ‘Drink Me’ onto a decorative shipping tag and hang it around the neck of the bottle – this can be a craft or you can do a calligraphy class and have residents make them!

Another drink to make – FLAMINGO PUNCH! Serve pink drinks, such as this recipe for Pink Lemonade (below left, from Vegetarian Living). Add pink flamingo straws and call it Pink Flamingo Punch in reference to the croquet game in Alice in Wonderland.

FOOD IDEAS

For food to go with these Alice in Wonderland party ideas, think ‘English Afternoon Tea‘—ladies, in particular, will love this as everything is so delicate and lady-like.

Traditionally, afternoon tea is brewed in teapots and served in teacups on saucers—with the option of milk and sugar in from a separate jug and bowls. It’s served with dainty tea sandwiches cut into small bite-sized triangles and rectangles with the crusts cut off. Customary fillings are cucumberand cream cheese, egg salad and watercress, or smoked salmon and cream cheese. In the South? Pimento cheese is always good!

These are accompanied by a selection of tiny cakes or little scones with Devonshire (clotted) cream and jam, then everything is presented on a tiered cake stand.

You could also create a checkerboard effect with brown or pumpernickel and white bread sandwiches cut into squares to represent the famous game of chess. For inspiration, have a look at this image from Dorothy Lane on this site. There’s even an instructional video!