Today our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren came over for Sunday lunch. After lunch was over (and we had convinced the kids to eat two or three bites of their macaroni and cheese) we prepared the table for our annual gingerbread house making! Every year, for the past three years, we have worked to create a really cute (really homemade looking – cotton ball snow and all) house. As I was getting out the icing and putting paper on the table, my grandson decided to run around the house with the box filled with gingerbread pieces. Ignoring his parents warnings, he ran round and round the house, through the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room, laughing and screaming with delight. Then his little sister joined in, chasing and laughing, and then ……splat…they both slipped around the corner (just as all the adults had told them they would) and fell, gingerbread walls shattering into pieces.
OK….so we are going to need to do a little bit of wall repair, but I’m sure it will be fine. I got out the icing and started to repair the walls, the roof, and even the little gingerbread people. We waited a bit (although waiting with a two and five year old is never easy). Finally we started building. The gingerbread house kit included a prefabricated tray, complete with troughs to put the icing in and hold the wall pieces. I carefully ran the icing down the plastic trench and my grandson placed in the first wall. It stood for a moment before slowly listed to the right and falling into its two pre-broken pieces. Hmmm….We tried again with the back wall. It stayed for a minute or so and then it too slipped and fell into the middle of the tray. We tried putting in all the walls and using them to hold each other up. No luck. More disaster. That’s when the laughing started. Like the sound of the voices in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, it started in low, and then it started to grow. We giggled at first, then laughed, and by the end of a few minutes, we were laughing so hard we couldn’t contain ourselves.
The gingerbread house was in a complete shambles, but we were as happy as happy could be. And when the kids realized that if we weren’t going to use the candy and icing on the house and that we would all just have to eat it, we were the happiest family around.
Here’s to process (even a disastrous one) over product! And to family, of course.
Writing to Learn, Learning to Write 
‘Debacle’ is a great word. I enjoyed immersing myself in the process you describe, building to an unexpectedly joyful finish.
I can just imagine the mess and the laughter!
What a great story to remind us all of the importance of process over product, even, and especially, with gingerbread houses.
I say mission accomplished: a memory of the day the gingerbread house wasn’t. I hope you have some photos to revisit in future years.
What a story! I’m sure this one will be retold a few times. Such fun. Always making the best of tricky situations!