Gingerbread House

When I was growing up, Christmas traditions included making gingerbread houses.  My mom got a recipe from a good friend of hers and although the German spice was terribly expensive and hard to find, every year, she managed to make at least four gingerbread houses.  

We all took part in helping. Once the houses were made (a good test of our math skills, for it would never do to be short one-half of the roof), the leftover gingerbread was made into copious amounts of trees and log piles, and snowmen, to add to the charm of the houses themselvcs. Then it was onto making the icing.  Mom had a Seven-Minute Icing recipe which she had to cook over a double boiler.  It was an arduous process, and we usually waited impatiently to start getting the houses put together, so we could start decorating them.  Much as we liked the rest of the process, our favorite part was the candies.  My Dad judiciously measured out the amount each house would need - and of course, he added a few extras for us to munch on while we were working.  He was very generous in this respect - he always said "You can have as many candies as you want; as long as you don't have over two".  It was so hard to choose which two we would eat.  

We decorated four houses - kept one and gave the others away to families we thought would enjoy them.  We waited until New Year's Eve to eat our creation.  It took a few days to eat it all.  Every time we would go by the house, we would break off a  piece, until it looked like a bombed-out house.  The leftover pieces which no one touched (because there was no candy on them), were thrown out mid-January.

When I got married, I was anxious to continue the tradition of gingerbread houses.  For part of my inheritance, I had asked for the metal gingerbread house cookie cutters that my Dad had made for my Mom.  He had fashioned them for her after watching her for many years, painstakingly cut around paper patterns.  I loved that he made these for her, and was so pleased to add these to our own family tradition.  

As much as I enjoyed the thought,  I found that making the recipe for the gingerbread was a little tedious.  Invariably Christmas would roll around and I wouldn't have the German spice on hand; so after a few years, the tradition fell by the wayside.  [It also helped that there were ready-made houses on the market at a decent price and so it just became easier to pick one of them up on a grocery run and let the kids go at it.]  

This year however, I had a profound thinking thing inside my head. I would try the gingerbread dough found in the refrigerated cookie aisle.  I figured it didn't cost that much, it was ready made, and I would only have to roll it out and cut the shapes; rather than make a run to some out-of-the-way store to get the spice.  I told myself  how much nicer it would be for the kids to have a chance to put together an old-fashioned home-made house.  If the dough didn't hold up to the task, the gingerbread could be eaten and no one would be the wiser.  

So one winter's eve, I got out the cookie cutters and went to work.  When the job was done, I put the pieces in the freezer and on the night that I decorated the tree, my oldest and youngest put together the house.  They bought Lego candy to make a foundation and a chimney.  They bought mint chocolate squares to make the doors and windows.  They bought licorice candies and Ferrero Rocher for the trees.  Since I no longer had to worry about their bedtimes and being to hyper to get to sleep, I gave them no restrictions and they ate as much candy as they wanted.   

They were happily ensconced in the work for several hours.  The next day, my son worked on it for another two or three hours.  It was a masterpiece.  It was a pleasure to listen to them work out the details.  There was no fighting.  It was a collaborative effort. I realized very quickly that I wouldn't have to worry about directing them as I did when they were younger.  They designed a porch and put licorice trusses in to support the roof.  They didn't need my help.

I am so happy that I took pictures of it when I did.  

The house did not make it to New Year's Eve. It didn't even make it to two weeks before Christmas.  

One day I arrived home to see it had been eaten.  Demolished.  Except for the Lego candy foundation and pretzel deck.  

It is a mystery that we will not solve. No one 'fessed up to eating it.  And the only others we can blame are the animals.  And they aren't talking.