Gingerbread tales

Once upon a time there was a mommy who was not feeling very much like it was Christmas time. She was pretty much done with the shopping, but hadn’t managed to do much decorating. And really hadn’t managed to do much in the way of Christmas baking. She just didn’t feel like making tons of cookies and candies, that ultimately she would be the main one eating. Seeing as how Santa was always so generous to the kids in their stockings. Guilt started to set in, she felt like maybe she just wasn’t doing enough to make it a merry Christmas season for the kids.

One day she was reading a friends blog and saw a post about a family’s gingerbread house. Hmmm, her brain went, maybe it would be fun to make a gingerbread house with the kids. We’ve never done that before. But no graham crackers glued to milk cartons here, it would have to be real gingerbread. Then she remembered that many many years ago, she had bought some gingerbread house molds, and never used them. Now might be a good time. So she dug through the cupboards and came up with molds for three different houses and a train. (You tell me, what do you buy at a Longeberger party when you have no use for $90 baskets?)

So she compiled a list of ingredients to make the gingerbread and set off to the store that afternoon to buy the needed items and a variety of candies to the kids could have fun decorating them. Then she spent the evening measuring out ingredients to make several batches of dough. The next morning she spent making all the pieces for four houses and a train. Working out a mistake she made in doubling the recipe, but still managing to get it all done. Even while going to a Relief Society luncheon. Being the smart mom she is, she knew it would be best if each kid was able to do their own, so as to alleviate potential fights. She was hoping that one kid would be happy decorating a train. That afternoon she worked very hard to assemble the pieces. Making sure that no roofs slid off and no walls caved in. She had a nice assortment of houses and was feeling quite pleased with the effort. She just knew that this would be a great family project.

As the evening came, off she went on some errand. When she returned she was met at the door with tales of the dog who had managed to sneak his big snout up on the counter and eat the gingerbread. Very worried she rushed into the kitchen to discover that it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. He had only managed to eat some extra accessory pieces that went to the houses and one train piece. Her hopes for a fun experience were not ruined. She smartly covered the houses and left them on the counter.

The plan was to decorate the houses the next day after school. That morning she had to go to her youngest daughters preschool program. What a sweet thing this little girl was. She smiled so brightly as she sang the songs she had been learning and looked so darling in her little reindeer shirt made with a footprint and two handprints. When the two arrived home, she climbed up the stairs and upon looking around began to be worried. It looked like the dog had once again managed to get into the garbage while she was gone. She really did not want to spend time cleaning up garbage again, but oh well, it must be done. As she walked toward the kitchen to fully assess the damage she noticed some suspicious looking crumbs on the floor. “Oh no,” she thought,” Please don’t let it be.” She walked into the kitchen and discovered that truly her fear was real. Naughty dog had eaten a whole house! What to do, hope that the kids could cooperate and share a house, or make more. Well, she decided that the best plan would be to make more, so she immediately set to work making up a new batch of dough, and spending the afternoon getting two more houses made. This way there would be a house for everyone and she wouldn’t have to worry about someone not wanting to do the train. Despite the frosting glue not wanting to hold as well this second day, and walls that didn’t want to stay up, she managed to make these last two houses work.

The husband came home to a third day of smelling the delicious smells of gingerbread in the house. The mean mommy wouldn’t let him eat any of it. “Leave it alone,” she kept telling him, “No eating it until we get it all decorated. (He was starting to believe this was all a joke, and would never happen.)

Finally the time to decorate the houses came. The mom had worked hard on cleaning up the kitchen and getting everything all ready. She went to get out all the decorations she had bought and discovered that two of the kids (the boys) had managed to eat three bags of candy. Still positive that she had enough she tried to gather all the kids to come participate in this great opportunity. By this point, after days of hearing about it and waiting, only the girls had any desire to participate. They had fun, and with any luck, this will not be something that they want to repeat year after year after year.