I am not sure what takes the most effort when constructing a Gingerbread House. Controlling the spackle/frosting as it spues out of the plastic poorly constructed manufactured bag it came in, keeping said frosting off of every surface within a 3 foot radius (including light fixtures, floor and your Christmas Card holder) while frosting, trying to encourage your children to actually use the candy for decorations instead of an appetizer/precursor to lunch or having the courage to walk out of the kitchen while Extreme Home Make Over takes over.
So each year I try to take one more baby step back and let the kids construct their own house, thus letting the frosting come alive and the gumdrops half eaten stick to wood floor. And they are excited about their autonomy for about an hour, then their ADD kicks in and/or Spongebob Christmas comes on the tube, and interest is lost. So like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, and I step in as the cleaner and finished up the project and put my flair on it. All in all, another Christmas memory is created, mostly created by me. But if we have nothing else than we have our memories, even if a good deal of my time was spent yelling and cussing at the kids. So here is what we can up with this year:
So I am feeling pretty good about myself, our gingerbread box has been checked, next on the list to tackle, cookies for Santa. Then I get this email. Now, I am sure you have one too, that girlfriend, you know the one that is so freakin talented and artsy crafty that even her monogrammed craft crates have labeled containers inside. Her kids underwear have been embroidered with their names and her food pantry is organized by shape and color. Well, ours is "L", and although she is engineer by trade, holy gumdrop hell, she sent me a photo of her Gingerbread mansion. Kinda makes my house look like the before dilapidated house from Extreme Home Makeover; pipes broken, mildew in the tub and cracks in the wood floors.
