My life's gotten simple since.

[constance]

For the past week or so, I've been really struggling my way through NaBloPoMo, which I will call by its proper name just this once. I was all talked out, I thought! I had told you everything, and then some! But I guess it turns out I was just choked from THE UNBELIEVABLE PRESSURE OF THE MANDATORY ONE-A-DAY POST, because now that the end is upon me, I've suddenly got lots to say. Of marginal interest, it's true, but that's always true.

So. Here we are. Done, after this one thing:

I have been lately obsessed with the idea of making a gingerbread house. But not just any gingerbread house, oh no. I want to make a slightly truncated replica of my house. Which is ridiculous for several reasons: (1) Who'd eat it? Because I can't. ((1a) I thought of donating it to a children's home when I'd finished, but do people actually eat gingerbread houses anyway? I am unclear on this.) (2) It'd be a huge expense. (3) Ditto the time investment. (5) I have never actually made a gingerbread house, and a really elaborate one is probably not such a good place to start. (4) I've got lots of things I really do have to do, you know, other than making tiny candy tables and chairs.

And yet this idea, it has hold of me. It will not let me go. Help me, I am begging you.

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Man, I would so like to kidnap you and bring you in as a ringer for my Gingerbread House Team this year. Last year I finally led a team to victory in the annual office gingerbread competition (http://amelia-eve.livejournal.com/76104.html). This year, as defending champion, I have got a work group that is all about the team spirit but channels it all into happy hour. Nobody can buckle down and agree on a theme that we can actually execute. I feel my crown slipping away! Come up and decorate with meeee!!!!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

No, you're supposed to be dissuading me!

Your posts from last year are actually one of the big reasons I'm dreaming of making a gingerbread house this year. Between that and the encouraging when you're supposed to be discouraging, you have an awful lot to answer for, young lady.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

OK, but do you have any good theme ideas that I can use? I mean, your own house is a cool theme idea, but I don't think it's going to work here. I think I have to just go stare at candy until it starts to look like something else.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:O Do you mean that Cammy's House, as a theme, will not fly in NYC? Fie on that, I say!

I don't know for themes, because I'd think you clever people have thought of everything over the years. But since y'all work in publishing, what about taking a Christmas story as your starting point? A Christmas Carol, of course, or maybe The Best Christmas Pageant Ever? I think I'd be tempted to tackle "The Little Match Girl," but that might be a little depressing for a holiday contest.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Or maybe Whoville (http://www.amazon.com/How-Grinch-Stole-Christmas-Seuss/dp/0394800796/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3_rsrsrs0)? Or A Christmas Story? Edward Gorey's Twelve Terrors of Christmas?

Or, you know, if you don't want to go for books or stories, what about New York? I bet there's lots of iconic New York Christmas imagery you can play with. Rockefeller Center, or department store windows, for example.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that we must use the same basic house as everybody else, so making other buildings is tricky. We did not do will the year we recut it to make a gingerbread Parthenon, and the rules have since been changed to forbid it.

But I must think how I could create appropriate Whos because Whoville would kind of rock, and could be done with the basic house.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I think marshmallows might make excellent Whos. Large ones for the bodies, smll ones for the heads? Gently molded to the right shape?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Of course, you can make edible play-dough. Is that against the rules?

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

The only serious rule is that we have to use the provided house. And marzipan would be a form of edible play-doh, I think. Must meet with my team today!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to hear what you come up with! :D:D:D:D:D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

or wait, fondant icing! It is very moldable! *spams you*