A Smallish Gingerbread House

Who in their right mind would send me to the store to buy an assortment of candy to be used to decorate a gingerbread house?

Louise did, that’s who. I guess that answers the whole “right mind” question too. You see, we are having Hurricane and Tornado for a sleepover on Friday night, so what better time to make a candy house. Their mom and dad are going to an adult Christmas party and I believe that there will be very strong hot chocolate being served.

Friday will be movies and popcorn; even we aren’t stupid enough to get the kids on a sugar high and then try to put them to bed. No, that is for the hung over parents on Saturday night. Just on the off chance that they are reading this, we aren’t really going to give them a lot of candy. Hell, I am not even sure whether Tornado is old enough for candy. Oh, he likes candy, but we don’t want to deal with the aftermath of a trip to the ER. We could keep it secret, but I don’t trust Hurricane to keep his mouth shut. He is a lot like his mom in that respect.

Back when she was cute instead of beautiful, I would be out with the kids and maybe we would do something a little dangerous like say climbing up a sandstone cliff. It really wouldn’t matter if they promised to keep this secret between us, as soon as their little feet hit the shag carpet, their mouths would start to say ”Guess what we did mommy…” The story would pour out in a jumble, but unfortunately Louise is very good at piecing together jumbled stories. You know, even though she was smiling at the kids telling about their adventures, I was sure that I hadn’t heard the last of it. Louise was and is very understanding, and I can’t think of a time she was really disappointed in me.

Well, perhaps today when she saw the tabletop full of candy. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, but we have been sticking to a weight loss plan and are having some small success. This might just possibly test our resolve. Not me, because I am more than willing to be that 500 pound behemoth that needs to be craned out of his house and eventually buried in a piano case. No, I have gone eight hours without ripping the bags apart and it is minute by minute now.

I am a little concerned about how small the house is going to be. There is just no way that any kind of gingerbread will be able to support that weight. I have my doubts about the table. We may have to scale the project up a little. I just had a thought. We could decorate the outside of the house! It would be beautiful, and delicious. That would show those bastards down the street with 50,000 lights, moving reindeer, a Santa popping in and out of a chimney and of course the baby Jesus, his mom and dad and an assortment of wise men.

When I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t. Not only would I need to buy a little more candy, but things didn’t go so well for the last person that decorated her house with candy. Two fat kids started to eat her house, and eventually pushed her into an oven. The story never says, but I am sure those little devils ate the rest of her house. It does say that they ransacked her home after they killed her and made off with all the valuables. It gets a little weird after that, they ride a duck across a river and when they find their father’s home it turns out that the step mother is dead. Nice family!

No, I think we will stick to a smallish gingerbread house.