Gingerbotheration

A highlight of my Christmas last year was making the gingerbread house. It was a bit of palaver, but decorating it was so fun. And we ended creating something quite charming in the end, if a little rustic. It looked and smelt truly festive and also meant we spent days on a constant sugar high (grabbing a bit of roof or wall every time we passed it).

Last year's effort: my first gingerbread house. Stop laughing please.

I may have mentioned that we are grounded. Hopes of a festive trip to the Sunshine State have been cruelly dashed. So Christmas will be spent in London, and will probably be just the two of us and Jack, at Fox Corner.

Last year when I started the gingerbread house I was convinced I was establishing a tradition for our family for the rest of our lives. But I'm wondering now whether I might put that idea on ice for another year. By Christmas 2013 we'll really be a family, and can truly get into the creation of Christmas traditions. There'll be a gingerbread house, Christmas Eve pyjamas, the putting out of sherry and mincepies / milk and cookies* for Santa, and many more cutely festive, child-focussed happenings. Is there any need to rush into it? After all, once we start with all that, it's set for the next 20 years.

On reflection, I think really our first married Christmas, and our last without children, should be about grown-up, lazy fun.  A lot of long lie-ins, plenty of take outs, and absolutely no elaborate baking challenges.

But then again... the child inside me (I don't mean literally, as in my unborn child, I mean the 7 year old me who still operates parts of my brain) is already saying 'It's not Christmas without the gingerbread house!'.

I suspect if that seven year old me meets my nesting instinct I'll be back in the kitchen rolling out wall and roof panels before I know what's taken hold of me.


*The Transatlantic jury's still out on that one.