When I was about eight a 
neighbor invited my older sister and me over a week or so before Christmas to join her and her family in making and decorating gingerbread houses. She made large pans of gingerbread, which she cut into parts to form a small house, glued the parts together with icing, and then decorated the house and "yard" with candy and sugar figurines. It was enormously fun, and Even long after Christmas, I still couldn't bring myself to eat any of the gingerbread house, even though it was all quite edible. Read more
