A sweet surprise…

Once upon a time there lived an amazing woman; cook, house keeper, cleaner, doctor, nurse, chauffeur, banker, teacher, nuturer, disiplanarian….

My Mother is AMAZING! So last Sunday, after months and months of planning, I threw her a surprise 60th birthday luncheon. Gathering all our close family in one room to celebrate her birthday was a task and a half, but it was well worth all the texts, emails and telephone calls!

At the end of the meal I unveiled a candy table full of her favourite sweeties. I knew we wouldn’t need any more food after a gorgeous three course lunch, but I thought it would be nice to give everyone a little personalised goodie bag to take home.

For weeks I googled ‘candy table’, reading other peoples advice, their do’s and dont’s. I must have looked at hundreds of images of elegantly dressed tables with jars of coloured sweets and cupcakes.

Once I had decided on a pink theme, I set about gathering bags and boxes of Mum’s favourite jellies, chocolates, boiled sweets and marshmallows.

I ordered personalised candy bags and jar tags from etsy. I bought matching raffia ribbon to tie around the candy jars.

The jars came from The Glen House pantry; having chucked them in the dish washer, I wrapped raffia around them and hung the personalised tags.

We had chocolate covered brazil nuts, mini eggs, walnut whips, marshmallows, wine gums, haribo jellies, army and navy cough sweets, rhubarb and custards, oooh and ferrero rocher’s!

I set out the pretty jars of sweets at the luncheon, alongside a framed note, candy scoop and candy bags.

It was a delightful to watch the table being raided by the family.

“Happy 60th Birthday Carol” candy bag

I wrote a personalised thank you note, inviting everyone to help themselves to Mum’s favourite sweets.

Ssssh, these ones were mine….

Happy 60th birthday Mum!

Melissa xx