« Earning Their Stripes | Home | Happy New Year! »
Every year at Christmastime, I get it in my head that this will be the year I build a gingerbread house that actually stays upright. Each year I fail. Usually some walls collapse. Always the roof slides off. It drives me nuts. And yet I keeping building them, year after year. Including this year.
But this year I had a foolproof plan. I ditched the homemade gingerbread recipe and instead bought a gingerbread house kit from Wal-Mart, pre-baked and pre-packaged with icing and decorations. Plus, I had three little helpers. How could I go wrong?
Did I mention I had three little helpers? Yeah. “How could I go wrong?” really is a silly question to follow that news. But I am a silly woman with a silly dream: to build a gingerbread house that doesn’t collapse as if the Big Bad Wolf just puffed on it.
I think my issue with gingerbread houses stems from my childhood. We had an aunt who sent us a pre-packaged, assembled and fully decorated gingerbread house every year at Christmastime, and it was truly an event when we got to dig into it on Christmas Eve. My parents would set it in the middle of the table, my three sisters and I would kneel on chairs all around it, then my dad would shout, “Go!” and we’d rip that thing apart and shove pieces in our mouths as if we hadn’t eaten since the gingerbread house the year before. It was glorious! I remember being very very happy. In fact, I swear that the photo at the top of this blog post is the very gingerbread house she sent every year, from The Wisconsin Cheeseman. Honestly, when I found this photo on-line, I instantly tasted the gingerbread and the sugary icing, even smelled it. I probably started drooling, too, but I’ll never really know for sure since I fell into a trance. It was all very weird. But again I felt very very happy.
My gingerbread house issue isn’t helped by the national gingerbread house competitions that I watched over the years on the Food Network. Surely if some girl in Hoboken can build a scale replica of the White House, I can slap a shack with four walls and a roof together. It doesn’t help either that I shop at a Henry’s that displayed a gingerbread empire with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme this year. It really got me anxious to get building.
The boys and I built our humble gingerbread house using the kit, and you know what? Even though the roof did slide (“Mommy! The top is falling off!
AHHHHH!!!!”), I was able to catch it and didn’t mind so much standing there for five minutes holding it up as a new line of icing cemented it back into place. I suspect it was due to over-decorating. Just one side of that roof had to weigh as much as one of my sons.
After I reinforced the roof with half a bag of icing, we were good. The kit’s tray had ruts in which the walls cleverly sat, so nothing slipped, nothing cracked, nothing so much as shifted. We ran out of icing and decorations, but that was easily solved. Voila! One gingerbread house, only slightly askew . . . but definitely still standing.
And don’t these three *sweet* little helpers look very very happy about that?
Looks yummy
That was so cute. Your stories always seem to cheer me up and make me smile. We spent Christmas Eve with the fire alarm going off, me calling ADT, my mom grabbing two of the three sceaming boys and running for her room, me typing in our code 100 times, and finally getting to the circut braker in the garage where I turned it off. The boys were traumatized, mom was shaken, and we were snowed in, so we had a lonely Christmas Eve trying to get back on track. Thanks for the funny story. I am working on sending pictures of the boys. Merry Christmas!
I have never made one of those cute houses but you are th e brave one!!My grandkids and their mom’s do all the kind of “stuff” at Christmas. Your friend Ramona, seems to be living in t he same part of the country as we . Our huge snowstorm has all but disappeared again!
Sun was shinning now for three days but think we are about to get “hit” with some kind of weather tomorrow. Oh well— I am nice and warm and t he fireplace is a great place to
make you warm and snuggley. Have a wonderful holiday, Debbie–and God bless you all!!!
Boston bette
Debbie,
Do not dispair, Dad has purchased a gingerbread house from Wedeking’s Bakery. It comes with a tall chimney and icing smoke, a Santa and sleigh on the roof, and the usual candy decorations. The boys can jump in and eat this one too. However, I have to say that your Gingerbread house seems to be more colorful then this one and is probably more special since it was assembled by three budding bakers.
See you later! Mom.
That’s the same exact gingerbread house kit that we purchased last year. I was very impressed with how well the whole thing came together and we, too, had a great time constructing our house. Until, someone was shoved off a chair, cracked their chin open on the way to the floor and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
This year, we signed the kids up for a gingerbread class through Montevalle. Can’t say that I’d do it again since it was a bit too pricey – and we didn’t know until we showed up that we had to pay an additional $10.00 per child for supplies on top of the tuition cost. (Which was actually negotiated down from $20.00 per child because our three small kids could SHARE a house.) Ah well, live and learn.
The gingerbread house from Henry’s that you saw was definitely not made by someone who has three preschoolers underfoot. I’ll can tell you THAT much, right now.
Merry Christmas!
Great job! Impressive! Looks like a fun day. Last year I took my boys to see the gingerbread displays at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC… It was truly amazing!! In the mist of our journey we got out of the car asked the valet to park my car…. when I came back four hours later – my car was in the same spot! Low and behold they were furious with me and asked what I did with my keys. As I looked at them puzzled I started to fish and jingle, jingle ~ I got so tickled I even asked for a parking discount!! Seems my car was blocking all the other cars and so NOONE could come or go. I got into my car, about to wet my pants, turned to the valet and gave a whopping $1.00 tip! My sister called on my cell as I drove away ~ we were in tears laughing so hard!! Suffice to say we haven’t been back.
BUT if you come south next year I will be happy to take you on a tour… (you drive). 