For the last couple of years I've put no effort into decorating my houses. Because, let's face it, they all look fine when they are covered in lollies, dusted with icing sugar and wrapped in cellophane.
But I'm going to four gingerbread house making events in the next couple of weeks. It's time to change my attitude. This year I will put in effort. I think I'll have a different theme for each house. No time to buy anything special for tonight's, but next week...
A spooky theme?
I think you're definitely on to something. We should run a poll for other options. Let's get the ball rolling...
ReplyDelete1. Stepford (as in Stepford Wives) - excessively tidy and uniform, vast swathes of green lawn outside.
2. Bachelor pad - many things broken and never repaired, rubbish strewn around inside, a few crushed cans landed just outside the window.
3. Surely there's room for the old lady who lived in a shoe...
(Yep, that's the Saturday night stall beginning)
ReplyDeleteThis year I am being a wouser and not going to my church's. That's because last year no-one I asked could come along (friend at work is allergic to cane sugar, so of course she doesn't want to go make one) so I went by myself to an evangelistic event (and they were nearly going to ask me not to come anyway because they needed the places for other people's friends), sat and made a gingerbread house that I couldn't take on the plane to the kids in my family and didn't especially want to eat myself, and this year I have decided to do something else with the $30. If I'd thought about it enough in advance to get into the theme though ... (I have actually seen some really awesome 'modern architecture' gb houses somewhere on the internet too!)
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn't you take it one the plane? I need to fly home tonight!
ReplyDeleteMy sister's husband's family (ie. parents, brothers and sisters families) design and build a different famous building each year for their gingerbread 'house' (usually connected to a country where one of the family members have travelled to during the year).
ReplyDeleteIn the past they have done the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, Eifel Tower and Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately I can't find any pictures of them online.
It is actually all the guys who take over the design and construction of it, but it does take them a whole day to do it (while the girls make other traditional Christmas biscuits/sweets).
I'm sorry. I understand none of this. Never made one. Never ate one. Never heard of church gatherings to create them. Who knew? But I do like the idea of designing freakishly clever alternative houses.
ReplyDeleteHi Deb. I can't believe you've not heard of this phenomenon! Let me tell you... Women's evangelistic evening... Have the gingerbread and icing pre-prepared, house construction, loosely connected evangelistic talk (perhaps, 'build your house on the rock...'), then stick lollies all over them and wrap them up nicely. People really get into it. I find that it gets old pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteWow, Deb, I can't believe you haven't come across the gingerbread house evangelistic event either! I haven't been to one in years but they have been around for a while....
ReplyDeleteI didn't really enjoy the couple that I went to. The talks weren't so bad, but I am such a non-crafty type that the house just looked lopsided and badly decorated when it was finished. And it took us ages to eat it afterwards, such a big sugar hit involved.
I think because I can't imagine spending a whole evening making a gingerbread house, I can't imagine being in a room full of people (I'm guessing mostly/all women) doing that. Now, don't get me wrong. It's obviously just not my "thing" and to others that might sound like a heavenly evening. I probably wouldn't go and I can't imagine I would invite a non-church friend to it. But I'm probably not the target demographic. Maybe it's not a Victorian thing. I'll have to ask around my Baptist friends and see if their churches have done it. I'm sorry. But the mind boggles.
ReplyDeleteHi Deb,
ReplyDeleteI never came across one of these evenings when we lived in the western suburbs (of Melbourne). But at the pressie church we now belong to in the north-eastern suburbs, the gingerbread house event seems to be one of the major women's events of the year, though I haven't been to one and probably won't go this year. So maybe it is a demographic thing.
I definitely didn't find it a heavenly experience when I went. I just found it embarrassing that my decorating skills weren't quite up to scratch. The church we currently go to doesn't do them and I think I would also struggle to invite a non-church friend to come along if they did.
ReplyDeleteI have also been in a previous church where a coffee and dessert night was held as an evangelistic event, in a local cafe. I liked that better, far less pressure was involved.
How did you know, Caroline, that I'm a western suburbs pressie??? Great deduction! I can only conclude, therefore, that your assessment is correct. I shall therefore have to ask my eastern Pressie friends about this strange yule-tide custom. ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, actually, Deb, I used to live a few streets away from you (if you're who I think you are)! But I didn't intend to comment in such a way as to imply that that was where you came from, more just to say what my experience was. But Google ended up posting my original comment without my edits, so it didn't come out quite as I intended.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons this "custom" is so popular in our church is that it is seen as a good thing for mothers to bring daughters to, and since I have four sons, my lack of attendance probably looks quite quite normal.
Caroline
I had never heard of this either. probably doesn't help that I went to church with Deb...
ReplyDeleteI caught up with a friend who is a Sydney Anglican tonight. She explained the whole phenomena to me. I feel caught up now. But still not inclined to stick slabs of giant cookie together with sugar. Each to their own! Part of the problem might be that I don't like ginger. Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier....
ReplyDeleteCaroline, after much frantic memory searching, we think we have you figured out. We think perhaps we were attending the same church for a while with your family. Maybe...
Deb, yes, that would be right, but our 14 year old "baby" actually was a baby at the time.
ReplyDelete@Caroline: Wow! That was a long time ago. We've moved back to that church at the start of this year. Hope you guys are all doing well.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Simone. We went on a slight detour. You can have your blog back now.
The only reason I've heard about them is that I know Simone (and Helen). I've never been in a church that did them or been invited to one. Maybe it is a phenomenon that has happened in the last 11 years, since we've been away from Australia?
ReplyDeleteThey aren't all that recent... I've been preaching against them for a few years now! Pagan fairy stories with witches and all that...:)
ReplyDeleteWow. You know, I have been in two churches now in the city/inner city of Sydney, both of which have tried to do other events (cooking demonstrations etc) instead of the gingerbread evening, but you know what - NOTHING gets people in like the gingerbread evening (and the demographic of my current church is mostly young professionals - who would have thought?). So, for that reason, even though some of us wonder why on earth we keep running these things, and what it is that is so good about them, they keep running them. And I believe in some cases the same ladies do come back year after year, because they are just mad about making these things and don't seem that interested in the talk, but, they are there and they are hearing it all the same.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow night I'm speaking at a gingerbread event with 100 women coming.
ReplyDelete'Twas the month before Christmas (precisely), and all through the house, not a woman was stirring, the icing was premixed...
ReplyDeleteHope it goes well!
I'd never heard of 'gingerbread events' either... This post was a mystery to me until I read the comments.
ReplyDeleteI have only been to one gingerbread house event. But I did enjoy it and the end result tasted great.
ReplyDeleteI have bought a kit from Coles to do with my girls as a pre-Christmas activity. It appeals to the crafting/baking part of me.
I thought baking the gingerbread might be a bit of a stretch for us but I hope we can successfully decorate it.