Today's Sweet comes from five cake decorators who made an extreme Christmas Tree cake for the Festival of Trees in Utah to benefit Primary Children's Medical Center. Since the cake was itself made to benefit a charity, I thought it would be a fitting way to wrap up our Charity Countdown.
As you can see, it's big. :)
Here are a few close-ups:
Love the train and
wood-graining.
It's hard to believe that tiny tree trunk can hold up such a huge five-tiered cake!
Here are some details on the tree itself:
Candy!!
And finally, the fine bakers who made it:
That's Amelia Carbine of
Frosted Fantasy Cakes, Dianne
Holgate of
Cakes by Dee-sign, Tara Churchill, Paula
Ames of
Cake Creations, and Lynn Winter of Sugar Bakers.
We finished our 14 days of giving on Christmas Eve (
go here if you don't know what this is about), and I'm proud to say that together we gave a lot of money to some fantastic organizations! We haven't quite reached all of our goals, though, so if you haven't had the chance to give your dollar yet there's still time to donate!
Here are the current tallies:
Charity:Water - $12,869 raised online so far. Every $5K builds a well that serves 250 people in need of clean drinking water, so as of now 643 people will be helped thanks to your dollars! (Today is the last day to give, so let's see if we can't still reach our initial goal of $20K!)
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - Sorry, we didn't set up a page to track these donations. But
you know you gave, right? So that's all that matters.
Heifer International - $5,770 raised online so far. Again, that's over halfway to our $10K goal!
Child's Play - since they also accept
Paypal (and prefer it if the donation is more than $1), we don't have totals for Child's Play. On our
First Giving page we've had $2,072 given - but again, the majority of us gave via
Paypal.
Share Our Strength - Initially featured on Day #2 of the Countdown, so a lot of you donated before we had a way of keeping a tally. (Had to switch to St. Jude because the site wouldn't accept $1 donations.) On our First Giving page now, though, we have $2,783.
Puffy Paws Kitty Haven - Another with two options to give, but we've talked to Rick & Chrissy and they reported well over $5,000 given through
Paypal. So combined with the $5,186 on the
FG page, that's over $10,000 - or enough to feed and house the cats for over 3 months,
plus pay for the
de-worming meds they needed. Thanks for helping meet some serious needs, guys!
Doctors Without Borders - $4,723 raised online so far - not quite halfway to our $10K goal.
Love 146 - $9,025 raised so far for our $10,000 goal. So close! Oh, and you must read
this amazing post by founder Rob Morris on the impact your comments and dollars have had.
Habitat for Humanity - $2,090 raised so far of our $10K goal.
Operation Smile - $2,712. To put that in perspective, that's 12 kids who will now have reconstructive surgeries thanks to your generosity. If we hit our $10K goal, that would be 41 kids.
The Buckland Family Trust - The last time I spoke with Kristie, a close family friend, the
Bucklands had received more than $14,000 dollars through
Paypal. Awesome! Thank you for helping Amanda & her stepdaughter start to put the pieces of their lives back together.
Free the Slaves - $1,759 so far of our $10K goal. These are all great causes, guys - if you're catching up, please be sure to check them out.
To Write Love On Her Arms - $1,566 so far of our $10K goal.
Give Kids the World - $2,193 so far of our $10K goal.
Thanks again, guys!
(Lest you incur a pox on your crudely drawn wine glasses!)
Whoah. Uh, Spidey, listen: I'm all for embracing your body image, but at some point spandex stops being your friend.
"Something seemed fishy about Nemo's new 'power diet.' And where was Bloat the puffer fish, anyway?"
[singing] "Oh, Mickey, what a pity
"Tink noticed it was taking a lot more pixie dust than usual to get off the ground these days. Peter, wisely, said nothing."
See? Comgratation. Interestingly enough, there are close to 3,000 accepted spellings of "congradulationed" in the decorators' dictionary.
Like so. Of course, sometimes after successfully spelling a word the thrill goes to the baker's head. Thusly we get "Ternifer" - a hybrid creation of "Terrific" and the name of the person who ordered the cake, perhaps?
Sure, the number's a bit, well, wrong...but hey, numbers are hard!
Wisites: n. [wi-SET-eez] Small, fuzzy mammals indigenous to Uganda prized for their venom, which is said to cure gout and certain types of restless leg syndrome. 
My my my. This was certainly a labor of love, wouldn't you say?
As you can see, it's big. :)
Love the train and wood-graining.
It's hard to believe that tiny tree trunk can hold up such a huge five-tiered cake!
Candy!!
That's Amelia Carbine of Frosted Fantasy Cakes, Dianne Holgate of Cakes by Dee-sign, Tara Churchill, Paula Ames of Cake Creations, and Lynn Winter of Sugar Bakers.
Oh, ick! What is going ON here? Hey, Drummer Boy! Could you play them off, please?
Uh. You're not the Drummer Boy.
Jumping poo-streaked gingerbread, what is THIS? Drummer Boy, seriously, get in here and play this guy off.
Oh.
YeeAAAAaaaah! Haha! Embrace the irony.
Although that giant smear of icing does make you wonder what it *used* to say.
(Correction: I meant to say "however." So stop looking at me like that.)
"Alue"?
Like so.
And I am so, so sorry.
Although if you misspell "Christmas," then he's going to go all stony faced.
Dude. Nick, seriously, try a little coffee or something. I think you're about to put the "pop" in "apoplexy."
I promised Jen this wouldn't be a knotty post! Ha! See, Jen? I can pun with the best of 'em.
Look! It's Santa riding a log!
Ahh. Das Yule Boot™.
The Yule Shotgun™©.
The Yule Corn-Nut Turd™©®Esq. MD. III.
'Nuff said.
"Dude! Not cool! I told you that in confidence!"
"What? That was a gift!"
So as you can see, the Airing of Grievances is a lot like your average family reunion.
Wow. That's one disarmingly flexible cake.
Of course, you can always count on someone to take tradition a little too far.
; it's all in there.
See, turned this way, it's an ugly, post-modern Christmas tree.
and it's an ugly, post-modern dreidel!
the Cinnamon Bun Cake.
And here I never thought I'd get to use the words "cake" and "bloodbath" in the same sentence. (See? Dogged determination really can pay off!)
It's electric!
Wow. Who knew a cake could have such an open mind?
[Mr. Bill voice] "Ohh Nooo!"
"Oh, oh, oh! As if my merry man-jugs weren't disturbing enough."
[shining flashlight in face all spooky-like] "And aaaall that was left was a Santa-shaped smear on the floor, with the name "Dallas" ominously written beside it - in blood."
