This year, my wife and daughter decided to start their own Christmas Eve tradition. Zed and I also tried to start one of our own, but found the strip club down the road closes at noon on Christmas Eve. Bastards.
Ella and Zoey decided to build a gingerbread house. And by build a gingerbread house, I mean build a gingerbread house that comes in a kit from the local crafts store. They were all stoked, talking about how they were going to build one every Christmas Eve, how much fun it would be, wondering what it would taste like, and all that jazz.
And then reality set in.
They started around 6:00 PM. They made the paste/filling/sticky stuff and started putting the house together. They affixed the four sides of the house to the bottom of the house with the paste/filling/sticky stuff. Per the instructions, Ella put four cans of food in the corners of the house to make sure the walls were secure.
And then she saw the next step: allow to stand for one hour.
Then she saw the next few steps: install the roof and then allow to stand for two hours.
Since this was Christmas Eve and we had a hell of a lot of toys to put together all good little girls and boys have to be in bed AND asleep by a certain time or Santa won't visit your house, Ella realized there was no way they could finish the gingerbread house. So we put the kids to bed and Ella finished installing the roof while I started putting the toys together.
On the afternoon of Christmas Day, Ella and Zoey decorated the house. I took a few photos of their masterpiece. They debated where to put the house before deciding the living room would be the perfect locale (up high, of course, so Zed couldn't lick it).
Ella carefully put her hands on the side of the house. She carefully lifted it off the kitchen table.
And then we watched the whole damn thing come crashing down.
The floor crashed down onto the table. Once the floor fell off, Ella accidentally smashed in the house. Gumdrops flew everywhere. I laughed. Zoey cried. Ella didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
How did this happen? Ella forgot to take the cans of food out of the house before installing the roof. I guess she was building some sort of gingerbread house pinata or something.
Song of the day: Family Tradition by Hank Williams, Jr.
Of Failed Family Traditions
