Gingerbread

I am actually writing this in March but I am giving it a December date. I just uploaded some pictures and I definitely wanted to post this one of Grace and the gingerbread house we created. Grace loves...or should I say "loved" to decorate gingerbread houses! Every Christmas season, she begged to get one. This was never a tradition in my family as I was growing up but it is...or should I say "was" becoming one. But after this year, we will probably never build another gingerbread house...at least not when Grace is around.

We had such an awesome time putting our house together. We made the icing to just the right consistency, "glued" the gum drops along the roof top, clipped the gummy mint leaves to create greenery, and did plenty of sampling along the way. And of course, there was Christmas music in the background...Kenny G, Miracles, if remember correctly. There were probably vanilla candles, as well. Ahhhh, the memories...

Then came the begging. "Pleeeeeese, mom...I just want to try it! Can't I have a piece? Why would we make a gingerbread house and then just look at it?" I explained that we, at least, needed to show daddy when he got home. We worked so hard and it was so pretty. We needed to let someone else see it first before we devoured it.

Mike gets home...sees it...then onto the begging. "Pleeeeeese mom! I just want a little piece...I just want to try it!" I made sure we had a picture of it and I gave the kids the okay to "dig in".

Then came the eating...

A few hours later came the stomachache...

Not too long after that came the throwing up.

I should point out that Grace was the only one who was sick...just a lousy coincidence. But just because the gingerbread house was not the cause, this didn't stop Grace from correlating the two. She could not look at the gingerbread house without feeling queasy. We had to hide it! Before she walked into the kitchen she would ask me, "Are you sure I'm not going to see it when I go in there?" The smell made her sick. The thought of it made her sick. We threw it away so she would not have any visual or olfactory reminders.

Maybe next year Grace will have forgotten about the effect the gingerbread house had on her but something tells me that decorating a gingerbread house will not continue to be our yearly tradition.