Homes, Sweet Homes

That December morning I woke up not feeling like myself.

I had just graduated from college, had married the man of my dreams—Jason—and now we were living in the big city of Chicago. I should have been unbelievably happy.

But when I heard the Christmas music coming from the clock radio and looked out the window of our basement apartment, I saw only one pathetic snowflake. I was homesick.

Back in New Hampshire the ground was covered with snow. Mom was decorating the house with holly and mistletoe, and my dad was working on his gingerbread houses. Without me. For the first time ever.

Dad and I had made gingerbread houses together since I was six years old. Not just simple Hansel-and-Gretel cottages, but elaborate houses with gummy bears ice-fishing and sledding and pulling candy toboggans through frosting and Mr. and Mrs. Claus waving from the windows.

We used hundreds of different candies: from Skittles, Lemonheads and M&M’s to peppermints and real rock candy for the rock candy mountain. This time of year we’d hunt down new kinds of candy to try—Twizzlers, Hot Tamales, gumdrops. I remember how excited I was when I discovered that Lego candies made great stone walls. We cut up pretzels into cords of wood, and squeezed icing out for doorways and window frames.

I was so proud when we gave our first gingerbread house away to a 106-year-old woman at a nursing home. “In all my years I have never seen anything so delicious,” she said.

Now if I made one, I didn’t have anyone to give it to. In Chicago everybody was a stranger. God, I prayed, what can I do to make this tiny apartment in this huge city feel like home? I looked at our kitchenette and its two-burner stove. The oven couldn’t even hold a cookie sheet!

That’s when the thought came to me: Make your gingerbread houses. All by myself? It wouldn’t be as much fun, but I was desperate.

I called home and Dad was all encouraging. Mom gave me the gingerbread recipe. I turned up the radio while I dressed, then headed out for the essentials: flour and sugar, eggs, cinnamon, a large rolling pin and a pan that would fit in our oven.

More calls home: “Dad, how much frosting do I need to make roof shingles?” “Mom, how long do I have to let the gingerbread cool?” “How do I make the walls sturdier?”

I scoured neighborhood shops for interesting candy—and soon I was meeting interesting people too. “You must have some sweet tooth!” one clerk said when I plunked down bags of candy on the counter. Everybody seemed curious about what I was up to.