Hentrietta Hay's Column

Bah Humbug! Maintaining Christmas traditions is a little like holding a bear by the tail. It is hard to let go.

This is a story of a gingerbread house. The history of gingerbread and Christmas is rather vague. It seems to involve children and cookies and festivals, starting in the 16th century in England and at about the same time in Germany. Legend has it that the first gingerbread man was a popular Christmas cookie invented by Queen Elizabeth I of England, although I find it hard to imagine her in the Palace Kitchen.

My tradition started some forty some odd years ago when my eldest son, then a little boy influenced perhaps by Hansel and Gretel, decided it would be fun to build a gingerbread house. He designed the house and cut out the cardboard pieces, which, incidentally, I still have. He found a recipe and we built the first one. For several years that was one of our favorite Christmas projects. Then he, as is usual, grew up and the custom was abandoned.

Many years later it was revived when a friend, who has small children, and I decided to try it again. We used the original pattern and the first house was a huge success, as were most of the succeeding ones.

Each year we made notes of the problems that arose and our brilliant solutions, and those notes, greasy and smeared with cookie dough, represent a long Christmas tradition. One year we laid her little boy out on the floor, drew around him with a pencil and made a life size gingerbread boy. But natural growth quickly stopped that idea and we returned to the annual house.

Last year we cheated for the first time. Somehow, the side panels were too soft and a couple of them broke. We glued them together with mortar. But in their weakened condition, they wouldn't hold the heavy cookie roof, and in desperation, we substituted two pieces of cardboard, carefully frosted. I'm sure no one noticed!

But this year took the cake, so to speak. The cookie panels were beautiful, accurately cut and hard as slabs of rock. This year the problem was the frosting. Does anybody out there know whether 20-year-old cream of tartar has lost its power to do whatever it is that it is supposed to do? That was the only answer we could come up with to explain the debacle. We carefully put the walls together and all seemed to be well. Then we gently laid the roof on, and equally gently it slid off. Tried again. Off again. We tried sitting there holding the silly thing together for what seemed like hours. Hands off. Roof slid gently off. Since the colors matched, we decided to try Elmer's glue. No help. Once again we resorted to cardboard. This time it looked as though it were going to hold together.

But all was not yet well. I reached across it for something, my coordination was off and the whole thing collapsed. So did we. In hysterics. But no one can say that we are not persistent. Once again we put it together and this time it seemed to hold, but by now it looked pretty sick. So my friend had a brilliant idea and sprayed the whole thing with artificial snow. It was perfect. We had created a snow-covered cottage. I quickly gathered up my coat and headed for home, thinking that we had at last outwitted fate. But it was not to be. The spray snow has a liquid base, and the sides gradually softened and - you guessed it - the walls came tumbling down.

At this point we decided that tradition can be carried too far. Rather than building a gingerbread house each year, the first Sunday afternoon in December could be better spent in front of a fire drinking hot buttered rum. But, overachievers that we are, we could not quit on a note of failure.

So next Sunday afternoon I will not be home. I will be building a house, which is going to stand up this time if I have to spend the entire Christmas season holding it together with my hands.

Merry Christmas. I'll probably have my hands full, but I wish you joy.