decorating and devouring gingerbread houses

“Nibble, nibble, little mousey, who is nibbling at my housey,” asked the witch inside the gingerbread house as Hansel and Gretel satisfied their hunger with pieces of her house.

Startled, the children stopped and looked up at her with crumbs of gingerbread and frosting still clinging to their lips.
They just wanted a little bit to satisfy their hunger, just as my grandchildren did.

First, the pre-schoolers, 2- and 3 years-old, assembled on the bed and listened to my daughter’s puppet and stuffed animal version of the story. With lots of animation to keep their attention, she told them the story about the mean momma plotting and scheming to lose the children in the forest. The lost children missed a couple meals as they wandered in the forest. Stumbling on the gingerbread house with candy decorations they rushed at it for a bite. The witch captured them in with plans to cannibalize them – as soon as they fatten up a bit. The children trick her and escape back to their father.

“Do you want to make a gingerbread house like Hansel and Gretel had?” the story teller concluded.

They followed her as if she were the Pied Piper.

The kit with the pre-made stiff boards of gingerbread cakes came ready with everything necessary to decorate and assemble the house. The frosting, as stiff as hardening cement — worked just right for gluing the pieces together. She covered the gingerbread tree with frosting and handed it to the children to decorate. They stuck gum drops and hard candy on the little tree, licked frosting off their fingers and hung the candy wreath somewhere above the door.

The two-year-old climbed up on the table under her mother’s watchful eyes to place lots of candy on one side of the roof while the three-year-old did the other side. Twenty minutes later, she lost interest, but the little worker man did not. He finished his side, turned the house around and finished inundating her side with the rest of the candy.

Except for a few pieces candy, neither had even a nibble of the gingerbread house before they went to bed.
The next morning their parents gathered up their suitcases and left. A day later, I tossed it in the trash.
Fast forward five days, when three much older granddaughters visited. I bought another kit.

The middle-school aged children squabbled over who would decorate each piece. We divided the pieces up into equivalent sizes and poured the candy into small bowls.
“We need more frosting. Will you make some?” one asked as she squeezed on the tube.

“There’s enough there, and besides, that is specially made to hold the pieces together.”
My husband went to his shop and returned with tools used to apply bondo auto body filler.

The girls’ noise subsided as they tackled the task before them. An hour later, with the windows outlined in frosting and the roof covered with gumdrops and sugar pellets, they pressed it all together and hung the candy wreath neatly over the door.
I considered sending the gingerbread home with the children, but the next day when I asked if they and another guest wanted to taste of the gingerbread house, they definitely wanted a tasty Hansel and Gretel experience. I placed the house on the table. Someone pried off a piece of the roof and broke it in two.

“Could we have some milk to dunk it in?” I poured mugs of milk, turned to clear the table and the next thing I knew all but one wall had disappeared — leaving the witch without a house. Again the children conquered in this ageless story.


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