The Gingerbread Incident of 2009

Tonight I was witness to what can now only be described as, "The Gingerbread Incident".

To tell the story of tonight, I must first go back in time . . .

When my fabulous friend Liz was just a school girl, she loved writing poems. Her favorite type of poem to write was the limerick. She was extremely gifted poet, so she decided to enter a limerick writing contest. Her entry was nothing short of genius. Sadly, Liz did not win the contest and to make things worse, when the judge gave her a consolation pat on the head, he said, "It was a good limerick, for your first time." This angered Liz and she vowed from that day forward that she would never lose anything again - even if it meant cheating.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Liz sent me an evite to a Gingerbread House Making Party one of her friends was hosting. As it happens, I knew Buttin would be out of town - but I love gingerbread house making (especially the candy eating part), so I agreed to be a part of her team. Liz and her husband, Jonathan, planned a practice run for a couple weeks ago. I wasn't able to attend the practice, but I did see the final product and the team (Jonathan, Liz and our other friends Aaron and Sarah) had done an excellent job and had a truly AWESOME theme - DRUNK IRISH CHRISTMAS. This theme was loosely based on Liz's family Christmases.

I have NEVER seen anyone prepare for anything like Jonathan and Liz prepared for the contest tonight (hell, I don't think I prepared as much for my own wedding). We had team t-shirts, there was a typed out "game plan", a sketch, a protractor (yup, you remember those from the fifth grade), no less than five dozen types of candy, marzipan people and special boxes for organizing all our materials. Liz and Jonathan were not messing around - they were in it to win it.

Our team arrived feeling confident (I even wore glitter eyeshadow and lipstick for the occasion).


We had one hour to complete our Drunk Irish Christmas (notice the t-shirts - pretty cool, huh?) Gingerbread House. The timer began and our team set to work.


Look at this expert construction - this technique should be studied by aritechture students (or at the very least - first graders in art class).


As you can see, even the protractor is out (and so is the sketch)!

The hour flew by, but we (and by we, I mean the four people who actually practiced) had planned everything out to the final drunken detail. We finished and even had time to clean up.

Here is the masterpiece.


I feel it only prudent to point out some of the fine details:

• Life-like marzipan people - complete with outfits, hair and shoes (notice how the guy in the front yard has lost his shoe - I think it came off during the car accident).
• Electrical wire (i.e. licorice) coming off the chimney that some poor drunk soul tried to climb.
• A portico (yes, a freaking portico!).
• A classy woman, barfing over the fence.
• Red gum for brick siding.
• A marvelous gumdrop Christmas tree and two coordinating shrubs (my favorite person is the one sitting next to the bush on the left).
• Beer bottles a plenty; and one of the best parts . . .

The backyard!

Notice the pool with the drunk guy passed out in it? Well one of my jobs (For the safety of others, I was only allowed a couple) was to mush up the corn for his barf. It's kind of difficult to see it - but I think it makes the entire piece.

Soon the judging began. I didn't take pictures of the other three houses in the competition but one was a Gingerbread Church, one was a Gingerbread Post Office and one was just a regular, conservative Gingerbread House.

A couple words about the judging - it sucked. There was one judge - the hostess of the party (who I don't know very well, but I'm sure is a very sweet, nice person). She didn't carry a clipboard or look very official (I don't think she even wrote anything down).

Within a few minutes, she announced the winner - the boring conservative Gingerbread House. It was perfectly lovely, but there was little creativity and no theme that I could discern. The kicker is that it was the hostess' brother and sister-in-law's gingerbread house that won! Our judge/hostess then felt the need to justify her choice by saying that from a proportional standpoint - their house was the best. She said that the people could actually fit through the doors. I guess she didn't deduct points for the animal cracker elephants in the front yard that were the same size as the people and could also fit through the door - that's so not like real life. At least no elephants I KNOW can fit through front doors.

As soon as Liz found out that we had not won, she clapped her hands together and said, "OK, let's pack up and go." This is a picture I took of Liz and Jonathan after we received the news that our people were TOO big to fit through the door (I tried telling the judge that I've been to lots of house where I had to crawl through the front door, but she wasn't going for it).

The look on her face is just priceless. To add insult to injury the judge/hostess told Liz, "This house is really great for a rookie effort." If Liz could have spit fire, I think the judge would have been a toasted little hostess.

We promptly packed up our things (including our house) and headed for the door, but not before I made everyone get their fudge party favor (I love fudge and so does Lumpy) and give it to me.

Pretty much the entire way home (which was a good 40 minutes - we practically drove to San Antonio) we complained about our loss and the unfair judging. Soon, it really started to get to Liz and she started rocking back and forth in her seat saying, "Not again, this is the limerick contest all over again."

Jonathan and I got her home as soon as possible . When she got home she was somehow able to make us dinner (yummy Swedish meatballs), but she kept repeating, "I'm a winner, not a loser." over and over.

After dinner - Jonathan and I encouraged Liz to do something she felt really good at, so she wrote this limerick:

There once was midget named Stephanie
She had a major epiphany
She said with a smile
It had been a long while
Since she had been tossed into the symphony.

I'm not sure this is her best work, but it got her out of the "I'm a winner." trance.

Here's one last picture of the three girls next to our house.



For Liz's sake, we shall never speak of this incident again.