Gingerbread house party

Christmas would not be complete without my sister Monica's annual gingerbread house decorating party. She works for days, baking the pieces for the frame of the house and painstakingly building the houses by sticking the gingerbread walls together with an egg-white glue. Then she lets her guests have the fun part: decorating the houses!

I love sitting around a table with Christmas music playing, talking and laughing with a bunch of other girls, sticking bits of candy all over my gingerbread house (and popping the occasional piece into my mouth), and watching how each person's creativity comes out in the many styles of decoration. We've been doing this for years, and every year, we still have creative new ideas that no one has ever thought of before.

Some of the finished products...

My house

The side of my house (I couldn't have a house without at least one orange wall, now could I?)

At the end, everyone gets a gingerbread house to take home or to give away as a Christmas gift. When we were kids, we would then begin to eat the gingerbread house, since everything is edible. Little by little, the candy would be picked off and devoured, then the cookie pieces, usually starting with the chimney, the shutters, and the door, until in a few days, there would be nothing left. Now we usually just enjoy having the house to look at, and we forego the candy.

One week ago, lying on my bed in Haiti, sick with malaria, how little I expected to get to do gingerbread houses this year! Thank you, God, for this unexpected and delightful surprise! And thank you, Monica, for all the hard work that allows your friends and sisters to have so much pleasure decorating these houses! Love you!