When I first met my husband he invited me to go home with him to New York for christmas.  We were both currently living in Oklahoma at the time.   When I met his mother she absorbed me into the family immediately, like an ameba making me feel like one of her own.  I suggested to Jeff that we should build a gingerbread house because I had never built one before.  We had so much fun building our first gingerbread house together despite the fact that our roof began to fall down.  Frosty the snowman and Santa had to be placed strategically so the roof did not slide off.
When the next christmas time rolled around we were living in California, as my husband was completing an internship there.  My parents came to visit us around christmas time and I thought lets build a gingerbread house!  My dad being the hunter and outdoorsmen that he is came up with a wonderful hunting theme.  My mom and I spent hours in the kitchen (dad came and went but mostly watched tv and pretended not to play with the cat).  Our plan was to build a cute little village…which ended up having only one house.  This village would have a cute little stream that the hunters would canoe hunt from and a wonderful forest for the deer to hide in.  When we finished this  masterpiece it was so beautiful.  We were so proud.
Now living just outside San Fransisco is expensive for not much room…for two people, two labs and two cats (including the visiting parents adding two more people).  We had created this wonderful village and we put it on the kitchen counter (which was shockingly small).  Meanwhile we had just acquired Jack (still macaroni at the time) only a couple months before and he was very much still a kitten.  Every day I noticed Jack’s increasing interest in this sweet and tasty village.
I was relaxing on our incredibly uncomfortable futon one afternoon when I heard noise coming from the kitchen.  It started with George Cat meowing in distress (she is a tattletale) as she was watching Jack on the kitchen counter.  I walked in just in time to see Jack pick up the gingerbread canoe in his mouth and shake it (all while standing in the forest and stream).  Gingerbread men and deer are flying everywhere and our oh so cute little hunting shack was no match for Catzilla, as he walked on it reducing it to rubble.  Jack completely decimated our little village in a matter of moments.  I truly tried very hard to be mad and upset with him however, watching an oversized orange maniac destroy a gingerbread village was highly entertaining.  We have not made a gingerbread anything since.   Every year we say we will but run out of time.  I have decided I am going to make a gingerbread farm this year so stay tuned for that epic story (since nothing is ever easy in a house with 2 dogs and 3 cats).