A baker?

Every year the Blue Jackets Foundation asks the spouses/partners/friends of the players, coaches and trainers to decorate a small Christmas tree that they will then auction off and raise money for their cause.

Last year Linda Noel and I had this pleasure bestowed upon us and we were clueless in how to pull this off, so naturally we put it off to last minute. I didn't know it was supposed to have a theme and neither did Linda. One day I ended up in Michael's (the craft store) and saw a bunch of mini ornaments so I bought them. There was no rhyme or reason to them but they were mini and they were cute and I wanted them.

Finally, the day before the due date of the tree, Linda and I were scrambling to get the tree decorated and were laughing our heads off at how bad it was. The trees from the other women were flooding in and each time we saw one, we wanted to crawl under the table and hide.

There was one that was in the 'John Deere' them that had all these toy tractors and trucks all over it. The topper was a John Deere hat and it looked great. The trainers brought their tree in on this huge platform with a working train going around on this winter scene on a track. Oh god, we were screwed. Here Linda and I are stringing fishing line on the tiny bulbs and snowflakes hanging them off our tree.

We then moved it into a coaching motif--we attached whistles, and a small rink board as the topper. We also got all the players to autograph a small christmas bulb each and added a signed jersey as the skirt. It started taking form, but it looked like a home made job through and through. Our ace in the hole, however, made all the difference in the world: we added a lunch date with the coaching staff. Our tree ended up making the most money by a mile. We won. We didn't even know it was a competition but c'mon, of course it is.

This year, I have a theme in mind and it involves baking, which is going to take place today. I am not much of a baker, but I am willing to give it a try for the sake of making our tree look good. Who am I really kidding though...in the end, it is all about the lunch with the coaches...get ready guys, you will be having lunch and getting grilled about your team all over again. It bailed us out last year, and considering my baking (lack of) skills, we will need it again!