“Time for bed, Nicola,” her mother called from the top of the stairs decorated with garland. “Santa will be here soon.”
“Yes, I know, but I have to make my gingerbread house before I go to sleep,” 10-year-old Nicola Claire explained, opening the Gingerbread House Kit.
The set included pre-baked gingerbread and icing to make a two-story home. Gingerbread men, shredded coconut, colorful beads, jelly hearts, mini jellies, spearmint leaves, candy canes, pinwheels, sugar wreaths, chocolate pretzels, gum balls, rock candy, peppermints, marshmallows, glazed nuts, chocolate bars, and spice drops.
“As long as you can finish the Gingerbread House without falling asleep,” Mrs. Claire insisted. “Tuck yourself in bed when you’re finished. We can take pictures of it in the morning. Maybe we can even eat it for breakfast! Merry Christmas!”
“Good night, Mom!” Nicola agreed, gluing the gingerbread pieces together with the icing. She placed candy pieces artistically on the house as a creative masterpiece.
“I’d really like to live here,” Nicola imagined, yawning. She placed her head on the table for a moment’s rest, closing her eyes for a second, which then became minutes until she was asleep. In her dream, her stature shrank, and she stood as tall as the gingerbread men in the kit, which was much smaller than real life.
“What happened?” she questioned. “I know I wanted to live in the house, but I didn’t know I would get my wish.”
She wandered through the rooms of the gingerbread home and holiday candies enjoying the sweet-smelling house. As she made her way to the kitchen with a peppermint fireplace, she met a gingerbread man hanging a sugar wreath.
“My name Cinnamon,” the cookie announced, with a white icing body, red candy bow, and jelly heart eyes. “Welcome to the Holiday Gingerbread House. I hope you will be able to find your way home by Christmas morning.”
“I’m not even sure how I got here in the first place,” Nicola declared. “How do you expect me to find my way home?”
She sat down on the chocolate bar floor and shed tears, melting part of the ground. “I just said I’d like to live in the Gingerbread House. I never said I wanted to be stranded as a miniature person on Christmas Eve,” she lamented.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Cinnamon whispered. “If you eat the Gingerbread House, it won’t exist, and you’re sure to be home.”
“Eat it? The whole thing?” Nicola asked. “If I was as big as a real person, then it might not be so bad, but my stomach shrunk with the rest of my body. How am I going to be able to fit this entire house in my stomach? It will hurt!”
“Then maybe you need to make yourself bigger, and the house will become smaller and fit in your stomach,” he suggested, placing a jug of milk on the table. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to eat the Gingerbread House without milk.
“Do you think I can swallow it whole?” Nicola wondered. “Maybe if I concentrate hard enough the house will even shrink.”
“It might be a little bit more than you can chew at once,” Cinnamon considered. “Take small bites. Enjoy the treat! And make sure you eat the house before any of the cats in the neighborhood find you. They would surely eat you and the house!”
“Cats? Oh, no!” Nicola bellowed. “I must eat the house and return home. What was I thinking when I built it?”
So Nicola set about eating the Gingerbread House one wall at a time, then the roof, the chimney, the floor, the door, the windows, and the front porch. As she ate the home, she grew in stature, and it became smaller, little by little.
Although her stomach ached a bit, she mostly enjoyed the sugary house, eating it like a big birthday cake.
When the cats circled, she tried to hide until they left. They most certainly could smell her little-girl scent and would be back. She must be gone before their return. So, she ate every last crumb of gingerbread, icing, and sugar.
By the time she grew back into her real-life state, Cinnamon was very tiny, and she picked him up to look at him.
“Should I eat you, too?” Nicola contemplated. “I can’t possibly eat you! You’re my friend. I should be able to make it home now.”
“You must eat me, too!” Cinnamon commanded Nicola. “I’m the last morsel to swallow before you return to your house.”
“But won’t it hurt you?” she worried. “I would never ever want to hurt you. In fact, you’re the one who helped me eat my way out of this mess. I would have never thought of eating the Gingerbread House as way of returning home.”
“Oh, my, I’m a gingerbread man,” Cinnamon mused. “I was made to be eaten by a lovely girl like you!”
“Well, if you insist,” Nicola hesitated, eating her gingerbread friend whole. She took a big drink of milk afterwards.
Then, she awoke back at her kitchen table in her family’s home on Christmas Eve, far past midnight. Standing beside her was St. Nicholas, admiring the Gingerbread House that she built before dozing off into a dream.
“This is Cinnamon,” St. Nicholas heartened to Nicola, handing her a stuffed gingerbread man as a Christmas gift.
“I’ll love him forever,” she promised, holding him at her chest and kissing him. “We’ve been friends for quite some time now.”
In the morning, Nicola ate the Gingerbread House for breakfast with Cinnamon and the rest of her family as though she had made her holiday magic reality. Even her mother got an apricot cat from her father for Christmas.
It was the happiest Christmas of all, and by far the sweetest. Sugar and spice and all things nice!
Copyright 2016 Jennifer Waters
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