Gingerbread

What is it about gingerbread houses that I like so much?

Long time readers know that each year, we host a house decorating party.  Bryan bakes all the pieces.  I whip up the icing and assemble the structures.  Last year, in a fit of madness, we made trains--an engine for each family and a box car for each child.  In the recovery period after chemotherapy and before radiation, it somehow felt like the normal thing to do.  In fact, we did it twice: one party for our home school co-op families, and one party for our cul-de-sac.

This year, we made a house for each child and a country chapel for each mother.  Why do I enjoy the whole thing so much?  I think I've put my finger on it:  It's a party, yes, I know about that part.  Assembling mass quantities of houses is a problem-solving excursion.  I like figuring out how to get not just 1, but 15 roofs to dry right without having to hold them in place. 

But most of all, gingerbread houses combine a practical challenge with the ultimate whimsical goal.  On the practical side: How can I make  my house look nice, with a design that somehow makes sense while on the other side, I know I am constructing something that makes no sense whatsoever.

A gingerbread house?

What would a prospective home buyer have to say?  "It's nice.  Good neighborhood.  Good square footage.  I just kind of wish they had downgraded from peanut m-n-m shingles to regular and then used the cost savings to install indoor plumbing." 

Or: "I love how the landscaping looks.  But I don't think the Oreo step-stones could withstand a hard winter freeze and I'm afraid the candy canes would attract deer." 

The kids have their own view of it.  The first year we did a neighborhood party, Gemma had just turned 4 and Josh was about 18 months.  We decorated one house together and proudly put it on our kitchen island for display and nibbling. 

Gemma, Bryan and I were in the family room when we heard an explosive, disastrous smash in the kitchen. We ran there to find that Josh had climbed up, tried to pry a piece loose and brought the whole thing tumbling down to the tile floor where he now sat, eating part of the wreckage, not noticing that we'd all rushed over to him.

Gemma wailed at the sight.  Her house!  Her beautiful house!

Then she looked down at Joshua and despite her anguish, did the math.  She, too, joined him in gathering the carnage and eating it, though she was crying the whole time.

Bryan and I were laughing and laughing.  And taking pictures.  I just finished putting that page into the scrapbook.  (Do you hear that, Sister #2?  I am a full 3 years behind!!) 

Our current houses and chapel will sit undisturbed for a while starting Wednesday, when we leave for Florida to spend Christmas with Bryan's parents.  This will very likely be their last Christmas in their island home.  For several reasons, it is time for them to transition into a planned retirement community that is just across the bridge, on the mainland.  They are both in excellent health, so at least the move is not shaded with a twilight of decline.  And the place they plan to move to is beautiful.  A robust social life awaits them.  But it's a change, and probably not one that is part of their ideal world. 

Isn't that something, though, to have lived for 14 years on an island, just a block from the ocean?  Their house is so pretty, a two bedroom, open floor plan, jewel box of a home, with a great big deck Gemma likes to sit on in the mornings when she's there, eating Papa Pedro's exotic fruit and tossing the pits and seeds over the railing.  And that fruit!  Their entire lot is covered with either short ground cover, or a plant that produces something edible, including many kinds of mangoes, abajacava, bananas and a bunch of fruits I'd never heard of before Pedro planted them. 

It is a short walk from there to the ice cream store, a short bike ride from there to the light house, a short drive anywhere around an island that is about 12 miles long.  Bryan and I think of it as the place where we fell in love, during the visit when I was first meeting his parents.  (He called it "checkpoint zulu" because it was the last point of approval to get before the engagement.) 

We live in a place of beautiful skies that rise and set against mountains.  But they don't compare to a Florida sky, rising and setting in extremes upon a Gulf.  Their home, and the place where it sits, seems like its own little fantasy that we step into (during winter months, and not being there in the summer is an important part of the fantasy).  Really, with just a couple pieces of licorice thrown onto the roof and some Gummie Bears iced around the doorway, it would be a whimsical dream come true.