On Saturday, we celebrated our son-in-law Mike’s birthday, and since it was so close to Super Bowl Sunday, I decided to go all out with football decorations. Full disclosure: I was inspired by one of my favorite blogs—Maya*Made. Maya, the young woman who writes the blog, lives with her husband and two children in upstate New York, on a beautiful piece of land with a swimming hole and a waterfall. Maya loves to “make & bake,” and her level of creativity is so high that it can scarcely be measured. At the same time, many of her projects and ideas are simple enough for less talented people (like me!) to tackle, and often the projects don’t require expensive materials. Do check out Maya’s blog, if you get a chance.

Anyway, thusly inspired by Maya, I cut a few branches, put them in a vase, and made football decorations for the tree. This was a very inexpensive project. Branches abound on Narrows Pond Road, and all I had to do was go out and clip a few. A brown paper bag we had on hand was perfect for the footballs, and we hung them with black thread on the branches. (My husband, Clif, helped with this project.)

When I give birthday presents, I always like to include something I bake. What came to mind? Why, sugar cookies cut out in the shape of a football, frosted with chocolate icing, and then decorated with lacing. They came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

For the table setting, we made placemats out of paper bags, and Clif was able to find little chocolate footballs to use as favors.

This, of course, was the prelude for the birthday meal. In our house, the tradition is for the birthday boy or girl to choose whatever he or she wants for the meal, and then we cook it. Mike went with a tempura, always a fun, festive meal as it is cooked right at the table. A tempura makes any celebration or dinner a real event.

In “A Super Bowl Birthday: Part II,” I’ll include pictures of the tempura along with a brief description of what we used for the meal.