The Gingerbread NightmareDo you ever see those beautiful gingerbread houses during
holiday seasons that are so beautiful? They look so simple, and look like such a fun project to do with kids making gifts for grandma and grandpa. I could just feel it….soft Christmas music in background, warm, spicy smell of gingerbread filling air, cozy warmth of fire on a snowy day, and my children and I building these luscious goodies sure to bless our family and friends, and all inexpensively as well.
That was fantasy. Where was my mind? How could I forget about little thing we call REALITY? Ever notice how professionals make things look easy? That’s very mark of a professional.
The first reality check was store. Money was very tight and these looked like a great way to give a quality to gift to several loved ones. After we did shopping for candy and ingredients for these gingerbread houses, bill totaled nearly $75. I almost fainted. (We could have bought some great gifts with that, or even bought beautiful gingerbread houses).
As for Christmas music, children insisted upon Chipmunk’s Christmas carols. Have you ever listened to more than 1 chipmunk song at a time? Have you ever noticed what that does to a brain?
The fire was nice, but then we had fights over whose turn it was to stoke fire. Two boys can fight over anything, and anything involving work makes a worthy fight indeed.
We started with dough, and that part turned out! It was SO delicious…..in fact we had to make more because after all of us eating dough, there wasn’t enough for houses. So….back to making more dough.
This particular dough had to be chilled, then rolled, then you cut pieces of house out from a paper mold with a knife. Ok, got that part. We put it in oven for baking, and half of pieces burnt terribly. The other half were perfect, but you can’t build a house with half parts. So…..we had to make MORE dough. By now, we’re not having fun anymore. It’s getting late and mom is beginning to want to get this mess cleaned up now. We finished making new house pieces and it was like midnight, I had long put children to bed and was cranky now at this point. The only thing to do now was to let everything cool (including tempers), and attempt decorating tomorrow.
