The Becker Community Center hosted their annual holiday craft show and tree lighting ceremony  Sunday. Craft Show The craft show ran from 2 to 6 p.m. and featured crafters and vendors from Tupperware, Scentsy, Minnesota Apparel, Pampered Chef and Tastefully Simple. Booths and kiosks filled the gymnasium and poured into the hallways and adjoining rooms.

 

Visitors could walk through the building and see handcrafted jewelry, knitted mittens and scarves, homemade journals and notebooks and fashionable clothes and winter garments for ones own fancy or for Christmas gift ideas for family and friends.

 

Nancy Kjellberg of Orrock Twp. had on full display her collection of Not Just journals. Her booth exhibited garden journals, book journals, wedding planners, recipe books, coupon holders. mini journals and numerous-sized notebooks and journals — all handcrafted in her home by her and her husband.

 

Kjellberg said this year’s craft sale at the BCC was her third time being a vendor and she said, “the day started off pretty good but then tapered off towards the latter half.”

 

Another vendor, Katie Davis of Blaine, said she was having a “pretty good sales day” as she promoted her handmade creations under the name of Befitting Beads. She says she has been attending craft shows for over five years and enjoys her hobby while she remains a stay-at-home mom to her kids.

 

Davis sells her items via Esty as well and her website is: befittingbeads.etsy.com.

 

Another returning vendor is Beth Holm of Darwin and she says she is very successful at vending her apparel because “I have good taste,” she says proudly. Holm has been a regular vendor at area craft shows for over 18 years and it’s just been within the last six years that she has focused her inventory on apparel.

 

Her company is called, The Enchanted Trunk and she describes it as “A traveling pop-up boutique.” 

 

Her web address is www.enchantedtrunk.com.

 

Food items were also offered at the craft show and mom and daughter, Laurie Humphrey and Samantha, were lured into buying a pack of homemade lefse from LaVonne Moss at LaVonne’s Lefse and Baking Goods booth. Moss has been attending craft shows for years and she is from Big Lake.

 

Becker High School junior Morgan Meyer organized to have a gigantic Christmas tree placed in the lobby of the BCC and adorned with ornaments, tinsel and other Christmasy decorations. She is working on achieving her Girl Scout Gold Award and the event included inviting the public to the Teddy Bear Junction Room to decorate clear Christmas bulbs donated by Crafts Direct for the Remembrance Tree.

 

Meyer instructed the bulb-making participants to bring a photo of a loved one (children especially) who has passed away in the last few years of a cruel disease or malady. The ornament-makers would place that photo in the clear bulb to be a decoration for the tree. The purpose behind the Remembrance Tree is so those who have passed away too early in life can be remembered through this simple act during the holidays.

 

Meyer had a dance teammate, Brianna Bertram, die of Cystic Fibrosis in 2014 and she continues to show her remarkable fortitude for keeping her memory alive for years to come.

 

Brianna is also the daughter of Tracy Bertram — Becker’s Mayor-Elect — and her husband Mark.

 

Members of the Becker High School choir showed up at the BCC just prior to 6 p.m. to sing three Christmas carols for all attendees of the day’s event. Gretchen Bordson conducted the caroling as the kids gathered around the Remembrance Tree to sing for the season.

 

Following the carols, the dozens of guests to the BCC ventured outside to join in on the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the BCC parking lot.

 

Jamie Cassidy did his best Pied-Piper imitation at a little after 6 p.m., as he directed the scores of anxious holiday season well-wishers out the doors of the community center to the darkened south end of the parking lot. With a countdown from 10, the guests “oohed and ahhhed” as the twinkly blue, yellow, red and purple lights lit up the trees right on cue.

 

Cassidy invited all the participants back into the BCC for some treats, juice and hot chocolate while others stayed where they were and took video and still pictures of the trees.