The First Gingerbread House I Built With You

You won’t remember this day, but it is vivid to me. You were two. That means I had been a grandma for two whole years, and I thought I was getting pretty good at it. Your Mom used to leave you to play with me one afternoon per week while she volunteered at a nearby medical clinic for low-income families. It was our quiet time together, just the two of us.

One day, I pulled a gingerbread house-making kit out of the pantry just after you arrived. I had not anticipated your 4-minute attention span nor your aversion to getting frosting on your fingers. I thought we’d make gingerbread houses in one long burst of creativity. Instead, it was a project that took us most of the day in shorter bursts. We’d stick on a few candies, you would lose interest, or start eating the gumdrops, and we’d eventually have to take a break.   

You couldn’t squeeze frosting out of the bag by yourself, but you were perfectly content to help me hold the bag. I tried to give you as much control as I could:

• “Should we make the window or the door next?”
• “What if I put some frosting here and you stick a candy in it?”
• “If I put a red candy and then a green candy and then a red candy, what comes next?”

After several 5-minute sessions, broken up by moments of coloring on the whiteboard, playing “store” in the basement, painting with watercolors, and a nap complete with 4 read-aloud books (I’m not sure which one of us fell asleep first), we mostly decorated 2 ½ of our 4 gingerbread houses. We also ate a few gumdrops.

And then it happened. The moment that I still remember a decade later:

I was piping some red frosting out of the frosting bag to outline one of the doors on your gingerbread house, and totally out of the blue, you reached over, wrapped your little arms around me, and said, “I love you Gramma Nae.”

The feeling I had at that moment is a little difficult to describe, but I felt it, physically, just like I felt the closeness of your hug. Something buzzed from the top of my head to my toes. You were only two, but you had used a combination of words to communicate to me something that you were feeling. The connection I felt was electric. That little utterance was so genuine, yet so unexpected. It filled me with the same unanticipated joy that I felt the day I leaned over your bassinet and saw your dark hair for the very first time.

I was making gingerbread houses with you so that we could have a relationship. But you were so little, I hadn’t realized you had the capacity to want a relationship with me in return. It was a moment that I still think of as magical. Time and again, I have experienced that same buzz of outsized love, joy, pride, and contentment as I have spent time with you. That feeling has returned in the most unexpected moments: the time we spent a whole weekend building a fairy garden, the day you showed me how you were learning to play the violin, the time we made a pact to travel to see the Northern Lights together. The night we finally made that happen, you lay your head on my shoulder during the long ride back to the Airbnb, in the dark, at 4:00 a.m., and we both knew we’d just created another core memory together.

It is Christmastime again, and I’m already anticipating the magic of what I want to create with you in the years to come. Someday, you might be the one to help me decorate the Christmas tree when I can’t climb the ladder anymore. I’ll come to hear you play in a symphony concert. I’ll open a gift you made for me. But for now, I am content with gingerbread houses, watching Hamilton with a bowl of popcorn between us, or playing school with your younger cousins.

You were the first one to say the words, “I love you Gramma,” and cracked open a place in my heart that never tires of your companionship. I love you, K!

Some tips for building a gingerbread house with a preschooler:

1. 1. We used a purchased gingerbread house kit, but you may choose to substitute graham crackers or even make your own gingerbread ahead of time.
   2. Glue all of the gingerbread house pieces together with a hot glue gun before you sit down to decorate. Don’t bother trying to stick stuff together with the pre-packaged royal frosting. Not even adults have that much patience! You will cover any exposed hot glue as you decorate. This project is not intended to be edible anyway. It’s simply an exercise in togetherness and creativity.
   3. Get all decorating supplies set out and ready to go ahead of time. Fill the frosting bags, place candy in small dishes so little fingers can get a hold of them. Have a damp cloth nearby, plus tools like a table knife for spreading frosting.
   4. Let go of all quality control expectations. Depending on the child, you may get to make a lot of suggestions, or you may have to be totally hands-off and just creativity run wild. This is not at all about the finished product. It’s about one-on-one time and being totally present with your child for a few minutes, doing something that you both enjoy. When it stops being fun for either of you, it’s OK to stop decorating.

   5.