The holidays have a way of bringing out the perfectionist in all of us. The magazines are filled with pictures of perfectly decorated homes and yards. Many of them with hand crafted ornaments that only take 3 weeks and way too much money to reproduce. The “Perfect Family” that lives up the road always has everything done and in place the day after Thanksgiving. The stores are filled with aisles of adorable decorations and great big sale signs. The drive to fulfill the fantasy of the perfect holiday takes over and the stress level goes up another notch.

It is important to make a decision regarding your activities during the holidays, are you doing these things because you love them or because you think you should? If guilt is the reason, let it go! If it is because you haven’t let go of the perfection drive, perhaps you might enjoy this little story.

I love to create gingerbread castles. I have done this since I was in the 7th grade. For me, it is a fun, creative process that I enjoy. It is a three day process, including the dough, the patterns (I make my own) , the gluing (with melted sugar) and finally the decorating. Of course, eating them usually doesn’t take my family as long. However, it is nice to have a gingerbread castle on the Christmas table.

Several years ago, I went through the process of creating my finest castle ever. The dough was delicious, the windows were made of rock candy (dyed with food coloring) and the powdered sugar snow on the roof was just delicate enough to look real. I was thrilled as I fell into bed around midnight, exhausted and proud. The following morning I awoke to hear my husband saying, “Oh no! Little Bit!” in a panicky voice. I stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living room. Rubbing my eyes, I heard my husband repeat, “Oh no Little Bit!” and look furtively back and forth between me and the cat. His eyes were huge and his head kept wobbling back and forth as if he was watching a tennis match.

As I looked in the direction of the cat, I started to laugh. I laughed til my sides ached because of what I saw. There, smack dab in the middle of my finest creation ever, sat one very happy kitty! Little Bit was convinced that she had the best mommy ever to have created such a delicious playground, as she licked her paws, she was covered in crumbs and icing. Fortunately for me, I enjoy the process of creating the castles. I knew from experience that they get eaten anyway, it is only a matter of time. So, it was just funny.

My table did not have a gingerbread castle that year. It hasn’t in many years as I got into another baking streak for a while. I baked over 100 rum cakes (each December) for gifts and that began to take up my time. I am not baking those cakes this year (at least not 100 of them) so perhaps I’ll take another shot at gingerbread. After all, I still have a dog and a cat who think mom is amazing when she drops goodies in the kitchen!