We received the “Make Your Own Gingerbread House Kit” as a pre-Christmas present, and at first I had suspicions that it may have been a re-gift, because doesn’t it just seem like something that would be a perpetual regift? Regardless, the opportunity to be creative in the particular way that constructing and decorating a gingerbread house necessitates does not arise very often, and I took it as a challenge to my aging and flabby right-brain to build an aestically-pleasing gingerbread house that any gingerbread man would be proud to call home, especially if he was gay pride gingerbread man.
First things first: I don’t like gingerbread. Nor do I like any of the gumdrop ornamentation that was included in the kit. Nor do I find the icing, which came as 20 ounces of powder that mixed with water to form a sticky paste that was exceedingly difficult to work with, in the slightest way appetizing. So the only errant temptation experienced during the construction had nothing to do with nibbling at the roof or squirting icing into my mouth. No, my desire was to smash the thing to smithereens when the roof refused to adhere to the walls, or when the gumdrops slid off of the walls, or when the icing somehow got in my hair.
The final gingerbread house looks nothing like the suggested artisanal designs included in the instructions that were called things like “Candlelight Cottage” and “Gumdrop Manor.” So I will call it “Happy Rainbow Christmas House”, because it’s sheer Christmasness allows us to feel safe forgoing a tree for another year and allowing the gingerbread house to stand as a testament to our festive spirit.
