’Twas about two weeks out from Christmas, and all through the house, Adam was drinking eggnog, while Emily put on her blouse. They were preparing to go upstairs, and visit their neighbors for the evening. There was a three year old who had been patiently waiting, ready to build a gingerbread house and east some candy.
Personally, I was just as excited as the three year old. I’ve always loved gingerbread, it’s the flagship cookie of Christmas time. I can remember when I was really little, my Grandmother Wilma would make me a calendar for the month of December, and each day would have a little gingerbread cookie tucked away in a pouch. Imagine a Christmas themed apron, with rows of little pockets, that have a decorative number on each on, and out of the pockets are little gingerbread people playing peek-a-boo with their icing animated faces. The temptation to devour as many as possible was constantly at my fingertips, and you would understand if you ever had my Grandmother’s cookies. She might as well have been the Oracle from The Matrix. She would see you eyeing the hanging calendar on the wall, and say something contemplative like, “what kind of cookies do you think Jesus ate when he was a little boy?” Then she would give you a caramel candy to suck on while you pondered the cookie choice of Jesus Christ.
The worst part was exercising restraint, every time you walked in the kitchen and made eye contact with the gingerbread calendar, gripping your gut and turning away in heartache. I guess that’s where I built up my ability to say no to drugs and alcohol, up until a certain age of course. But now, I can say that some level of my self-control is attributed to those early years of gingerbread temptation.
The real fix came on the final days of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Because if I remember correctly, and those giant gingerbread heads serve me well, the cookies my Grandmother made would increase in size as you got closer to the “birth of Jesus”. Now, let me take a minute here and acknowledge Baby Jesus, because similarly to his speculative time of birth on our seasonal calendar, gingerbread has some historical role to play in the visit from the Wise Men. This may just be wikipedia yanking my chain, but it was an entertaining alternative fact when I read that there was supposed to be a fourth Wise Man! This fourth wheel, who was supposed to ride with the original three to see the newborn king, ended up getting sick and staying somewhere in Syria. The Fourth was known for his spices and herbs, particularly his ginger. So, when word got to him that the newborn king was in Bethlehem, which I’m led to believe means “House of Bread”, he used all of his ginger to mix with his bread, to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus. Surely, this is a historical fact created just for my blog, but with all the healthy remedies one can benefit from ginger, of course that’s the Wise Man who ends up getting sick.
However, just like the Fourth, I would get sick at that same time of the month, but it would be due to excessive gingerbread cookies! Let me tell you, these cookies were not your thin crunchy ginger snaps, these babies were the size of human babies. Grandma Wilma would have all the cookies in plastic wrap, and the gingerbread of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be hanging at the bottom of the calendar, pulling down the apron cloth with their plump stature. When you would bite into these delicious gingerbread dudes, their rich chewy texture was still moist, covered in icing and Christmas cheer. Grandma Wilma somehow mixed in the Love of Baby Jesus in those cookies for Christmas Day, and when you took a bite, you had to sit down and consider “was I really a good boy this year, do I deserve this?”
All of that being said, when Emily and I went up to build a gingerbread house with our three year old neighbor, I was nostalgic of that family tradition and the taste of Grandma’s cookies. What I tasted was the dry dust of cardboard that had been stored in a warehouse for nine months. We made the mistake, as everyone does, believing that gingerbread houses are actually made with icing, when everyone knows the professionals use super glue. After rotating the sections of the house with ten minute sessions in the freezer, to hold the icing bonds, we began the exciting application of candy. This was the highlight for Leighton, the giddy three year old. It was a joy to watch, and participate in the ultimate seasonal activity of playing with your food. Until, yours truly, had to take the shaky foundation of the rectangular house to the freezer, and the walls came tumbling down. I was devastated, more so than Leighton, who ended up laughing at me, as I cried over the broken gingerbread cookies on the kitchen floor. We ended up salvaging the house, and creating a more inclined roof, an A frame house, with a hobbit door, so it was truly a magical gingerbread house.
