Gingerbread Houses and other Christmas traditions

There are several Christmas traditions that I've always wanted to try but have either not had the time or the opportunity to take part in. One of those is building a Gingerbread House. They’re sooo cute and yummy looking too. And definitely a part of Christmas! We see them as decorations and ornaments and they’re in nearly every picture depicting Christmas and family and home. So, this year when I saw a Gingerbread House kit at the supermarket, I grabbed it, determined that this quaint and homey tradition would become a delightful addition to my family’s Christmas experience. And this was a kit! How hard could it be? Certainly, even a novice such as myself could handle a Gingerbread House that comes partially prepared!

The kit sat on the kitchen counter for many days while I promised the kids that “hopefully tomorrow” we’d have a chance to put it together. I didn’t want to just cram it into the jam-packed calendar that the end of the school semester consists of. I wanted to have time to savor the experience. To create a memory that we’d all remember with fondness. So we waited and waited until, finally, on Christmas Eve day, with most of the holiday preparations completed, with the house full of happy children, I moved the Gingerbread House kit to the table and announced, “Now let’s make our Gingerbread House!” Children crowded around all clamoring to take part. “Can I put up the first wall?” “Can I do the roof?” “Can I do the gumdrops?” and so on. I beamed. This was it. The moment. The memory. It was happening.

First, the icing. The instructions were simple enough. Mix 3 tablespoons of water into the powdery substance that came in the bag and beat it for 3 minutes, until peaks formed. My little handheld mixer bogged down long before anything resembling peaks formed. Looked more like mud. “More water” someone suggested and I thought “But, the instructions said…” I added a bit more water. No help. A bit more water. Still nothing. It was beginning to become harder, if anything. “Warm it up” someone else suggested. I popped it into the microwave for a few seconds. No change. An older child wandered through the kitchen. This older child had made a Gingerbread House at school from one of these kits. “Yeah, we had to add a ton more water.” So I added even more water. Now it was moving better, but it was soupy. No peaks forming. Never mind the peaks, I thought, let’s just get this show on the road. Well, liquid icing, in case you couldn’t guess, doesn’t stay where you put it. It drips and runs to other places – places that you don’t necessarily want it. Walls fall down and roof panels slide off and although it may be quite tasty – it’s really quite frustrating too. Popsicle sticks and toothpicks. Rubber bands and staple guns. Nothing was going to keep those 4 gingerbread walls from tipping over.

There was icing on every square inch of the table. On every child around the table. Those once happy little faces were now drooping with sadness. I looked around and said, “Hey, let’s just eat it!” Some of the faces perked up. Some looked horrified. Some just reached for the nearest pieces. And we ate them. And we ate the gumdrops (they were stale) and the little hard candies (they weren’t very tasty).

And then everyone ran outside to play because it was a beautiful, sunny day and it didn’t really matter that we didn’t have a gingerbread house for Christmas.

We don’t have anyplace to put it anyway.

And the dogs would probably eat while we weren’t looking.