Innocent Village Savagely Attacked!

Traditions at Christmas time are such a wonderful part of the season. Each year we try to do the same things we've done in years past because we usually have great memories of each tradition.

Sometimes however, it can be fulfilling to break tradition and do something spontaneously different. In my family growing up, we always opened presents on Christmas morning. We didn't dare think of doing otherwise, but I remember one year when that didn't happen. Every Christmas Eve we opened up one present; usually not a real big one. For some reason, that year, we unanimously agreed that we should not stop at just one. What occured next was a spontaneous early Christmas that left us with happy memories of breaking tradition. Perhaps we had a few regrets the next morning when we had already opened all the presents.

Now I have my own family, and have instituted some new traditions as well as the ones I grew up with. For instance, each year we put together a gingerbread house. In the early years, it was mostly me putting it together and the kids sneaking the candy. Lately however, they've been able to help out more.

This year, we deviated from the norm a little by purchasing a Wilton Minature Gingerbread Village. It looked adorable and perhaps simpler because all the pieces were so little. As we got into the process, I began to realize that it was going to indeed be far more difficult to assemble the cute little village of five buildings than it would've been just to build one house. I knew it was very important to the kids so I began to press on thinking it was going to be an all night affair. Rob sat holding Aubin and became noticeably strained at how tedious the task was. We didn't get past the separating of all the gingerbread pieces (each building had to have the pieces cut with a knife, it was like performing surgery), when Rob made a suggestion. "What do you say to just cutting our losses and eating it?" All activity stopped as we stared at Rob with mouths wide open. The nerve just to suggest such a thing! After a moments contemplation it sounded like a good idea to us all! I was so relieved as we scrapped the project and just gobbled it up. Anyone can admit that gingerbread houses are a frustating thing anyway because you can't eat them. Well, we did, and we liked it! There will be no gingerbread house at our house this year, only pleasant memories of the year we just ate it.