Buy Me That: Cake and Cupcake Stands from Whitney Smith Pottery

Dig if you will the picture of a birthday cake for a family member.  Special, isn't it?  Certainly, for as long as it takes you to digest it and render it something I'd laugh at.  Memorable?  Not for long.  But a birthday cake sitting on this little lovely is a thing of beauty to behold every year you break out the family's traditional celebratory cake stand by Whitney Smith Pottery.

There's nothing sadder than an empty cake stand.

Or imagine the gleam in your little one's eye as you serve him or her a special candle-bedecked birthday cupcake on this darling little ceramic confection.

Also suitable for a birthday morning muffin, if you're the stingy, joyless type.

One of the things I'm enjoying most about being a parent is the creation of family traditions, and I think the special celebration cake plate and/or cupcake plate is going to become one of them.  I want Olivia (and, because he's a sentimental ladyman, SLB) to experience a thrill of anticipation and the warmth of nostalgia invoked by something special and familiar at each birthday.  Other holidays come with their own festive family artifacts (ornaments, menorahs, pumpkins, turkey costumes, etc.), so why not birthdays?  Besides, if cake is good and accessories are good, then cake accessories are just what each birthday requires to be spectacular.