The Gingerbread Chronicles
Every year, for each of the last four years, my daughters and I have held fast to the holiday tradition of hosting a mother-daughter cookie exchange and it’s something we look forward to each year. Lots of sweet treats and even sweeter friends all coming together to kick off the holiday season.
So, given the realities of 2020, we decided not to cancel but to instead reimagine our “cookie-exchange” into a gingerbread house building contest complete with online photo submissions and virtual voting.
This year, no gathering, no exchanging of fresh-baked cookies, no light-hearted worrying about the dog or little ones sneaking cookies off the table. Instead, just family unity, cooperation, creativity, and love coming together in the safety of our own homes. But, my visions of holiday music playing in the background, a fire burning in the fireplace, laughter in the kitchen, and perfect family collaboration were quickly dashed the moment the first bag of candy was broken open.
Girl Boss #1: “I have an idea”
Girl Boss #2: “No, I have an idea!”
Girl Boss #3: “How about we do it this way?”
Girl Boss #1: “That’s not what I had in mind”
Girl Boss #2: “It will fall apart if we do it that way!”
Girl Boss #3: “Heeey, don’t eat all the candy before we decorate!!”
These were the words that quickly began competing over the volume of John Denver and the Muppets Christmas Album* that I was desperately attempting to sing along to even as I too had “ideas” for the gingerbread house.
While we have been joyously living and working and schooling together, on top of one another, day in and day out for 266 days (give or take), I failed to calculate the realities of this cooperative and creative togetherness project at a time when togetherness is not what we are lacking. A project which would work best with one boss, not three. A project where building three houses would be easier than building just one. A project that I was not only asking my own family to undertake, but was asking each of the families from our annual cookie exchange to join in on and participate in their own homes. The anticipation for merriment was real but, in hindsight, my vision of reality was semi-flawed.
But, don’t get me wrong. I am proud that I have strong and opinionated daughters. I am proud that we are all bosses. I am proud that, while painful at times, we are learning from one another on how and when it’s ok to unravel and that unraveling is a part of growing up (in fact, unraveling is still very much alive into mid-life as well, especially in a year like 2020!). But when we learn what unraveling looks like, we can start to see it instead as an unwinding and when we learn how to unwind we can build castles out of clouds.
So, after disagreements on how to proceed, after one major crushing earthquake which required a re-build, after building a temporary replacement house (which in hindsight is the perfect quarantine unit), we eventually learned how to unwind instead of unravel and finished the project. As it turned out, it was a house full of realness, full of unraveled togetherness, full of family and, depending on your frame, a beautiful gingerbread castle.
The irony is that I am not a baker, nor a crafter, nor the vision of 1950’s domesticity but I host these things for friends because I love bringing people together and connecting (and this year it became a virtual coming together). So, to my friends that played along with me, and who persuaded their own family to join together in a project that (on paper) is the stuff of cinnamon and giggles, I thank you for braving the gingerbread wilderness with me.
So, let it be known, that while merriment in the kitchen was not our end result, we did succeed in making kick ass memories and our gingerbread castle (which we deemed “the natural disaster”) will live on forever in the digital kingdom. Perhaps other families fared better than we did and/or they can thank me later for the pain or joy it caused. But, when we reflect on this moment and all the moments of 2020, we won’t remember what it was supposed to be but instead that it was just as it should be — a story to be told, a memory to be shared.
We won’t remember what it was supposed to be, but instead that it was just as it should be…
So, raise a glass to all the gingerbread house makers and to all the merry-makers, and to all the unraveling and unwinding that 2020 has brought, and let’s toast a happy holiday and a brighter 2021.
*And yes, you read that right, John Denver & The Muppets Christmas Album. Check it out, it rocks. Some childhood memories that are REQUIRED to be passed down never die thanks to the digital age.
