Nibble Nibble, Part III: Housing Collapse

So this is the finished house, pristine, gracing the dining table for exactly a couple of hours. Within minutes of its completion, the makers began to withdraw their profits, as evidenced by the erosion of the far front corner of the roof, broken ridgepole and missing gumdrops.

After several days, this is the sorry condition of the gingerbread house. Everyone has been pilfering edges, corners, decorations, and last night Daughter and Friend abandoned all pretense of decorum and broke it apart into a pile of cookie pieces. The pieces now live in the cookie jar from the gift basket I won in the library's raffle, but I don't expect them to last much longer..

As we continue to nibble, we remember the fun we had baking and building the little house, and the glow of Christmas cheer warms us all anew. I know I would cheerfully do it all again next year!

(The recipe I use was originally published in the Honolulu Advertiser on December 17, 1970, page G1. The featured baker was Christl Chun, of Manoa.)

Christmas 2008

Daughter and I were tired from having gone to Midnight Mass last night, so we slept in. First time we ever did that on Christmas morning! Husband got the turkey in the oven right after breakfast just before Son showed up at the door - much earlier than expected - bearing gifts. This business of all-adult Christmases is still very new for us.

Although not an entirely techie Christmas, we accumulated a variety of electronic toys: Son's iPhone he bought late yesterday afternoon; the digital picture frame he gave me; the bluetooth headset I gave him. I have already been playing with my Dell Mini 9 for a week. Husband received Spore, and has already created his planet and cellular being, which has evolved into a legless ping-pong ball-like creature with a long snake-like tail, pincer jaws and a single eye in the middle of its back. Daughter created a couple of "Celtic Christmas" CDs from iTunes downloads, but we haven't been able to enjoy them yet, because the CD player has failed. Maybe we can take advantage of the post-Christmas sales to pick up a newer model.

And the food! This year, there was definitely too much. To be fair, we were expecting guests for dinner, but that didn't work out, so we have extra turkey, piles of stuffing, and several baked goods we never even touched: apple pie, cranberry squares, and also cranberry bread.

All-in-all, it was a good Christmas: much more relaxed than some, and the rainy morning made being indoors with a warm cuppa cider very cozy. We called Husband's family in Kentucky and my family in Hawaii.