There was a bit of dodgy house building here, today. Given Christmas is celebrated on December 24, Mirinda decided that, while prepared my julbord, she and Denise would build and decorate a prefab gingerbread house.
If truth be told, they started yesterday but ran out of glue. I made them some royal icing, and they used that to line the walls. I wasn’t being overly generous. In fact, I made the icing to go on my Christmas cake and gave them the leftovers.
This year, my cake was supposed to represent the snake, one normally sees on a rune stone. I even made red icing to line the snake. I’m afraid, in usual Chez Gaz fashion, it turned out looking more like a blood sacrifice. As if someone had nailed a snake to the top of the cake.
The photo above was taken shortly after I’d finished. It looked a lot worse after it had stopped dripping. I’m hoping it tastes better than it looks because I had to make a few substitutions in ingredients this year. Okay, I realise that I worry every year but, it’s a long project and failure is not an option. Just ask Mirinda.
Mirinda also took Denise for a Christmas Eve long distance walk. They had intended to stop halfway at a café for a rest and refreshment, not realising that today virtually everything is closed. They just kept walking except for a brief stop on a snowy bench which left them wet on the butts. And I’m not talking archery.
Still, apparently, everything looked beautiful and snowy and delightfully cold. Which reminds me, it seems that Queensland is going through a bit of heatwave with a year’s worth of rainfall falling each day. I know where I’d rather be.
Eventually everything was ready for yulbord. Even the gingerbread house remained standing under more than its own weight in sugar.
Sadly, I didn’t get the graveyard that Mirinda put in the garden at one side of the house. Or Denise’s red detail on the side windows. These were both spectacular features. Though the window frames did cause a bit of a pinky drizzle, as Mirinda noted.
I should mention the fact that the gingerbread houses, made and decorated by children, that we saw in the church on Friday may have looked less ramshackle, but I bet they didn’t feature quite as much hilarity and fun as this one did.
I say, well done to the Master Builders! “From this day on we’ll build together…” as Halvard Solness said.
There was nothing then to do but tuck into my yulbord which featured the usual Jansson’s temptation, Christmas ham, stuffed eggs, boiled baby potatoes, beetroot salad, herring, etc and, also, this year, I attempted an Ostkaka. It’s the only cheesecake I actually like. And mine worked really well, according to Mirinda. Obviously, I liked it.
Having eaten, we settled down to watch a bit of thrilling TV. It was while watching it that I started to shiver. This is very rare for me and indicates I am about to get a cold. I went to bed, fearing the worst for tomorrow.
