The Holiday House

Susanna here. The origins of gingerbread are difficult to trace, although it’s mentioned throughout history, including in the Fifth Act of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, when a character remarks, “An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread.”

He might have been talking to my husband’s friend who, for several years now, has been gifting our family with the most incredible gingerbread houses.

He makes these every December, entirely from scratch and to his own designs, and gives them away to his friends, and they’re just the most wonderful thing to receive. They light up. They make the house smell like I’ve been baking all day. And they’ve become a treasured highlight of our festive season.

Each year, we’re convinced he’s outdone himself.

This year, I’m sure of it.

He didn’t make us a gingerbread house, this year. He made a gingerbread mill. With a mill pond. AND water wheel.

I took these pictures the day it arrived (all the candy decorations have mysteriously vanished, now…) so I could share it here, and let it brighten up your holidays a little, too.

Next year, I’m told, he’s considering making a gingerbread train…

And I’m already clearing a place for it.

Have you ever tried making a gingerbread house? Is there any gift you receive each year that just makes the holiday that much more special? And are you, like me, hanging on a bit longer than everyone else to that holiday feeling?