Coffee mornings – that’s all we mums do, isn’t it? According to outsiders, that is. But, there is a grain of truth in it – coffee mornings are the backbone of inter-mum congress, the fabric that binds us breeders together. They can be daunting, especially the first with a new group. But it’s OK – there is a code. The code of sugary goodness. A packet of biscuits is the Masonic handshake of the Mummy World.
Coffee Mornings Are The New Dinner Party
Prior to motherhood, a coffee meant catching up at the work coffee point, or sneaking out to Starbucks at lunchtime. But once you have a baby, you realise that the coffee morning is the dinner party of your new world. Except instead of house prices, we talk about whether our baby slept through, school applications and the pros and cons of (hypothetical) post-breastfeeding boob jobs. It is where you forge new friendships, exchange repartee (witty, ranting and /or sympathetic), and enjoy good food and drink. Instead of bringing flowers, you bring biscuits – much cheaper and tastier.
Biscuitage – Some Do’s and Don’ts
In the early days of a group, coffee mornings are like a Biscuit Fayre. The spread is incredible. Your biscuit choice says a lot about you, before your group knows anything more than that you have a kid of similar age. Turning up with a pack of Rich Teas* is like turning up to a dinner party with the bottle of rosé you won off the tombola last Christmas. It’s not done. There is a protocol to biscuitage, and I’ve observed some basic rules:
1) The less well you know your hostess, the more lavish the biscuit.
2) Never bring an open pack of biscuits,even if you only opened them in the car. They may need eating up, but this is not the place for them.
3) If in doubt, bring two packs. Take advantage of 3 for 2 offers and make yourself look generous while squirreling a packet away at home. Win win!
4) Don’t sh*t on your own doorstep. I.e. Don’t buy the favourites you have at home. Coffee mornings are all about new experiences in sugar – don’t hold yourself back.
5) Don’t re-biscuit. Like re-gifting, be careful not to re-biscuit the person who gave you the original packet. It looks like you don’t eat biscuits at home (weird!), or can’t be bothered to shop for a nice packet of your own – heinous! In the unlikely event you are left with biscuits after hosting a coffee morning, it’s best just to eat them at once, to avoid the pitfalls.
6) Don’t bring Jaffa Cakes. Is it a cake, is it a biscuit? Who cares – they told us to eat them in labour, so they are off the menu for a good five years.
7) Buy seasonal. An Easter chocolate crispy nest with mini eggs on top? Yes, please! A Christmas selection box – ooh, you spoil me, mummies.
8) Don’t bring homemade. Other mums will be suspicious of you – how do you have time for that? – and feel inferior, even hateful, depending on how much sleep they’ve had. If you do bring homemade, do it only occasionally and apologise profusely.
The Crumb Trail
I find the biscuit algorithm goes in a predictable pattern. At your first coffee morning with new mummy friends, like my NCT one after we all had our babies, there is no limit to the biscuitage. None of us can get enough sugar. We are knackered, we barely know each other, many are breastfeeding, we have a new human being to look after – pass the plate, lady!
After a few months, we are all feeling a bit lardy, and the biscuit offering reflects that. So, less of the quadruple chocolate cookies, and more of the almond thins. Still no Rich Teas, though.
Then when we all start going back to work, the biscuits ramp up. We are juggling work AND babies! We hardly ever have coffee, let alone biscuits – we need that hit!
Don’t Mention the Diet
The greatest oxymoron of coffee mornings is that we mummies discuss our bodies not being the same, our poor/ nascent exercise regimes and our general dissatisfaction with our appearance…while eating lots of biscuits. But, I think you’ll agree, there is no contradiction in this. Biscuits are the Ying to the Yang of Buggy Fit. Without biscuits, we are nothing. I once tried to institute a fresh fruit theme to our coffee mornings, and it went down like a prune smoothie. No one wants to be reminded of the real world, our real challenges, while sitting on some nice mummy’s floor eating biscuits. We are building a wall against reality, one Extra Chocolate Round at a time.
Beware the Coffee Morning Relay
One fine day, I had three coffee mornings on the trot. Obviously, the latter two were edging towards the afternoon, but the name is generic. The point is, I had nine biscuits in one day. NINE! It was a wonderful day – but not to be repeated. I love my biscuits, but even I found that a little excessive.
Turn Up Empty-Handed at Your Own Risk
The only acceptable reasons you would turn up for a coffee morning without any biscuits at all are:
a) you broke your leg on the way to the house;
b) you ate them all on the way over as you’d had such a bad night;
c) you know the group well enough to have a bye, just this once (abuse this at your peril; you will be ousted if you always turn up empty-handed).
Happy Christmas Biscuits!
It’s four weeks today till Christmas and the run-up to the big day is a great time to have a coffee morning. You can all save on stamps by delivering your cards in person, plus you can enjoy that king of all biscuit offerings, the Christmas Selection Box. Just don’t lose your newfound friends fighting over the orange one. Bon appétit, mummies!
This Cadbury’s Christmas Selection tin is the third thing on my Christmas Wishlist. The first is a posh pink leather notebook from Smythson (see Behind Every Great Woman Is a Great List: I Won’t Be List-less This Christmas); the second is some decent knickers – see Pants Paralysis, Or, Can You Take A Buggy Into Ann Summers?
This Cadbury’s Christmas Selection tin is the third thing on my Christmas Wishlist. The first is a posh pink leather notebook from Smythson (see Behind Every Great Woman Is a Great List: I Won’t Be List-less This Christmas); the second is some decent knickers – see Pants Paralysis, Or, Can You Take A Buggy Into Ann Summers?
*Disclaimer: I do actually like Rich Teas. They are just the least exciting of the McVities stable. They are good for kids as relatively low in sugar; for this reason, they are bad for mums, though.
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Haaa. Oh, so true. Biscuit-bearing etiquette is a thorny path 🙂
True!!! If someone brought Rich Teas to my house I’d presume that they don’t like me very much. I’d kick their ass out the door to the corner shop and make they come back with a Hob Nob at the very least.
Hob Nob= Great Job
Bourbon?.. Bring it on! X
carry on katy recently posted…How To Marry A Millionaire.
That’s what I’d think. I’m looking for more of a Cadbury’s Selection tin to be honest. x