Gingerbread Homes (and Alamos), Minus The Ginger

I loathe ginger. The mere smell makes me sick. I'd be more willing to stuff my face with apples, strawberries and almonds, a few things I'm allergic to, than a teaspoon of ginger. But this year, I decided to clamp my nose and taste buds shut, and make some gingerbread houses. Little did I know, gingerbread houses made from scratch include an entire day of creativity, much more than just a few bucks worth of ingredients at the grocery store, and absolutely no ginger! (Unless you plan on eating the gingerbread house, which I opted out of doing after baking it a week prior to Christmas day. Nibbling on a stale gingerbread house? Nah.)

The preparation.

Since I'll be in San Antonio on Christmas, why would I not visit with an Alamo gingerbread house?! The idea of an Alamo gingerbread house came while singing some random Texas song in the shower, but the template to the front side of the Alamo came from Lisa Fain's blog, Homesick Texan (http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2009/12/gingerbread-alamo-recipe.html).  

Most easy-to-make recipes are found through simple Google searches. I just chose the websites with recipes that best fit my kitchenware..or so I thought. I quickly learned not to make royal frosting in the blender after it smoked and died on me! I now need to buy a new blender and the correct kitchen baking supplies.

As it was my first time creating a gingerbread house, I merrily skipped on down to the the store and...drew a complete blank. Note to self: keep a mental picture of your gingerbread house before shopping. Make a list! And don't buy candy that you will eventually eat before gluing it to your house. Woops!

Setting all the ingredients on the table and throwing all the candy and cookies into bowls makes for a more visual and organized display.

A full day's work. 

By the end of the day, my body, clothes and hair were covered in flour, confectioner's sugar and royal frosting. Creating a masterpiece house is not easy peasy. It takes a perfect amount of all necessary ingredients, strong hands to knead the dough, patience while cutting the template out, and lots of creativity when intricately placing each candy piece in its place. The dough needs to be thick enough to bake in the oven and not burn, the frosting needs to hold the correct consistency to glue the house together and refrain from collapsing, and the candy must not be eaten throughout the day or you will find a shortage on red and orange Sour Dots, or not enough blueberry Dum Dums to melt into an icy lake! Also, keep in mind that not everybody is as super duper excited about making a gingerbread house as you are, so make sure to keep the music flowing as company may leave throughout the day! ^^

A masterpiece. 

Once you begin the gingerbread house, you've basically signed a contract to finish it. An unfinished gingerbread house is a very sad house! You may hate the smell of candy and frosting by the end of the day, but you will wake up the next morning to find a happy and frosty little house (or Alamo) awaiting your accomplished smile. :) 

The Christmas Decorator Hater

War on Christmas? Is the media really rallying in all the Christmas experts, politicians and religious groups to fight about Christmas?! Is this yearly battle really worth the fight while the world is filled with wars on drugs, terror, freedom, and poverty? America and our war on Christmas...can't we just keep our bah humbugs to ourselves and move on our merry Christmas (or not so Christmas) way?


  Well, while the Christmas war is up and running with holiday spirit ornament bombs, I'm whistling about, decorating trees and stockings, making Alamo gingerbread houses, and preparing for a spiked eggnoggie Christmas day. I'm not doing this for any reason besides the fact that I love what Christmas is made of: family and shiny Christmas decor. 

Due to the hundreds of songs, movies, stories, and books out there on what Christmas is truly about, I don't want to go over that same redundant story...for the sake of redundancy. But seriously, even the Grinch grasped the meaning of Christmas! "What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." If a green and hideous Dr. Seuss cartoon character can get it, so can the rest of America.

Take a deeper look into Christmas. Take away the religious aspect, the son of God's birthday. Throw out the Santa Claus and the Rudolf and the elves. Take back to the store the masses of useless gifts and put back into your wallet all that unnecessarily wasted money. Strip Christmas down to its bare meaning, detaching the Christ or the X from their friend and dear suffix, mas. In fact, erase the mas...we clearly don't need more of anything.


Zoom in and strip away even more, to the bare butt essentials. All that's left?
The decor. The lights to dazzle your eyes and warm your soul. The pine tree to fill your nose with holiday scent. The glittery ornaments and the comfort of your family while decorating together on a gushy, fun-loving, tingly feeling December night. Or the night after Thanksgiving, for those impatient holiday lovers. Even if you're a Grinch, a Stooge, a Bad Santa, or a Bill O'Reilly, you can't say you don't like all those pretty Christmas lights quietly twinkling up and down your neighborhood.


Unfortunately, there seems to be a shortage of Christmas decorations this December in Austin, Texas. In the recent past, Christmas shone across the Austin city limits with bright lights of every color and size. The Trail of Lights carried you across Zilker park with thousands of lights to gasp and awe you over and over again. The trail took you on a massive, spectacular light extravaganza, and ended at the Zilker Tree, where spinning under Austin's original Moonlight Tower has been a long standing Austinite tradition. Today, all that's left is the tree. Big and beautiful as it is, the death of the Trail of Lights is heartbreaking. 

 The Trail of Lights is not the only traditional city Christmas decoration to be unplugged and thrown into the Christmas tree box. Due to lack of funds, Christmas lights that ran all the way down to the Capitol on Congress Avenue, a tradition that began decades ago, are gone. 37th Street (at Guadalupe) was a full block covered in Christmas decorations and lit up by night, shining true to the Austin weirdness. Today? My neighborhood in Pflugerville, Texas, has more to show! New neighborhood residents didn't catch on to the nearly 30 years of Christmas traditional lighting on 37th Street, and it's turned into a pitiful sight compared to previous years. 

Come on, Austin! Even Little Rock's Capitol building has got some Christmas spirit!

War on Christmas? The depletion of Austin's Christmas magic? Can't we all gather around and fix this Charlie Brown Christmas? All I'm asking for is a little decor. Some colorful bulbs. A few more shiny ornaments.  Brighten Austin, warm our wintry souls. I'm not asking to hold hands and sing "Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores!"

Happy Christmas, everybody ^^   -NANA

China and the Public Squat

One of my fondest Chinese memories is squatting in a public restroom with no stalls for privacy, directly across from another squatter with a lit ciggie in her mouth, a strained wrinkle on her brow and grunts which bounced around the four walls we shared. Females going to the restroom together was taken to a completely different level. Or, merely the idea of going to the restroom was taken to a level in which a Westerner, such as myself, found it momentarily challenging to grasp. That mental book of socially acceptable restroom etiquette is meaningless the second you touch ground in China.

The Toilet Paper Mystery
The Chinese invented the toilet paper 1,422 years ago. After doing my business in a Chinese public restroom, I'm left squatting over a stainless steel hole with not a single square of toilet paper in sight. At this point, I don't care if my bottom isn't pampered by Charmin's Ultra Soft tissue; A leaf would suffice! One may think that those innovative ancient Chinese genes would carry down to today's Chinese minds. But all I see is a sad failure in the toilet department after their ground breaking toilet paper invention many, many years ago.
Although scarce, there are places where you can find a roll of toilet paper nearby. They tend to be in Western restaurants such as KFC and McDonalds, or fancy restaurants and hotels. Unfortunately the Chinese restroom patrons, not used to the comfort of a roll of tissue beside them, have crazy toilet paper parties while using the facilities. And there aren't enough fúwùyuán (服务员, attendant) ladies that are willing to clean a tissue mess each hour. In conclusion, I learned to take with me my own personal supply of tissue paper. I returned home with a greater understanding and appreciation of the value of the toilet paper.

Cute Poop
China has a different view on poo and seems to be openly infatuated with it. You'll see poop piles cutely placed around the streets and sidewalks of China, drawn on English lesson activity sheets or plopped on the title of their favorite cartoon series Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (喜羊羊与灰太狼). Poo is literally everywhere, so I quickly learned to dodge the cute little piles...I don't find them to be very cute, especially when under my shoe!

The Bottom Slit

I'm sitting at a very low table on the side of the road, eating street food when I catch a whiff of something fresh and unappetizing. I turn my head to the direction of the wind to find the culprit squatting directly behind me, making a baby poo pile. As I'd been living in Beijing for nearly two months, I turned back around to finish my chicken on a stick and boiled soy beans. An entire summer of zig-zagging around pooing babies while walking along the sidewalks, it just didn't seem to faze me. Over in China most babies rock the "assless" chaps. Diapers? They don't wear them. Why not? There's a massive list of reasons. For example, diapers can get expensive, cause rashes and other health issues, and turn China into a used diaper rubbish pile if all children in China wore disposable Huggies. As a foreigner who watches children sit on the dirty Beijing sidewalks with everything hanging out from front to back, and walks around piles everywhere and anywhere, I personally find it a bit unhealthy and...well...did I mention that I don't find poop to be cute in any shape or form? 

Now that I'm home and far away from public squatters, I sometimes miss just sitting in that bent knee position. Long gone are my squatting days and long gone are baby poo piles. Although...I still bring my personal stash of toilet paper out of habit. ^^

For a bit of insight on Korean toilets, visit my South Korean blog!    South Korea Toilet Variety