...{sight}

before i begin, i'd like to state that this post may or may not be a total cop out.  there was neither baking nor the painstaking scouring of grocery shelves involved.  no oven, no measuring cups, not even a microwave. 

but what i lack in actual cookery i more than make up for in architectural mediocrity and preservatives.  they say that the first step is admitting you have a problem.  welp, my name is cassie and i, on occasion, eat food whose expiration date is a full year after that of the mascara i bought last week.  think about that.  or better yet, don't.  

growing up, the winter months in the sciortino household meant secret santa, advent calendars, and wearing your pajamas inside out and backwards in hopes that mother nature would throw you a bone and grant you a snow day.  less predictable, however, were those days when we would return home from school to find freshly baked gingerbread waiting on the kitchen table.  i don't recall ever anticipating the days we were to make gingerbread houses; instead, they simply arrived at the whim of the resident family baker.  

enter a recent trip to trader joe's and the gingerbread house kit that ended up coming home with me.  i mean, the package said it was an "authentic" german hexenhaus.  funny,  i'm an authentic german about seven times removed!  i pretty much HAD to buy it or i'd be denying my heritage!  

are you as easily convinced as i am when it comes to food?  i pray. 

anyway. what i came to find is that, regardless of whether they are  homemade or mass produced, gingerbread houses still maintain something stronger than their spicy taste and distinct scent of the holidays: candy-colored details, 'snow'-covered shingles, and the warmth and festivity that the sight of such a classic decoration brings.  even when they taste like cardboard.