Pity points suck, part 1

Last year at Christmas, my sisters-in-law challenged J and I to a Food Network Style Gingerbread house competition. How cool is that??!! We debated whether or not to invite Mom and Dad to join us, as she is a professional artist and he's an engineer who does carpentry for fun. After much discussion, we finally decided that we would let them participate. Who knew that they weren't going to be the "real" competitors?? I suppose I should have known. While we were discussing our ground rules, the discussion included a time limit. I've been a part of this family for a long time, and I knew better. My husband and his sisters will start a project, and nothing will stop them until they are done. Nothing. They won't use the restroom, eat, or even take a break. They are focused from start to finish. My attention span on the other hand rivals that of a three year old. We agreed on a two hour time limit.




We had a scoring rubric that included cleanliness of the workstation, general attitude of the contestants (points were lost for cussing and general crabbiness - I DO know my husband!), creativity, use of materials, etc. We all started with the same basic kit that Mom got from somewhere. And we all had access to the same extra materials. H bought some rock candy and other cool things, and Mom cleaned out her cupboards of the "crap I can't give away" to add to the mix.



J and I contributed the trophies. They were COOL. A few years ago H and C had the first annual Hocking family Zucchini Olympics. They had many events, all with the goal of getting rid of the abundance of zucchini from Mom's garden. To open the ceremony they had a gnarled branch with a beer can on top (ALL Hockings drink beer...it's their drink of choice) that they set on fire. Well, the torch was trashed after the festivities, but it served as the inspiration for our fabulous trophies! J and I went to Value Village looking for real trophies that we could modify and came up empty. We did, however, stumble across the most hideous wooden candle holders that looked like twisted gnarled branches. And we found a bobble head gingerbread man! How lucky were we?? We snatched up our finds and headed home. On our way we stopped at the hardware store for epoxy and silver, gold, and bronze spray paint. Then we stopped at the grocery store and bought a single 24 ounce can each of Coors Light and Coors. (The cans are silver and gold!)



When we got home we spray painted one of the candlesticks gold, and one silver. The bobble head was painted bronze. I pounded a nail into the bottom of each beer, and drained it down the sink. My father in law would have had a heart attack to see me waste perfectly good beer like that...J nearly did. But, it was for the good of the art. Once the cans had been rinsed and dried, and the candlesticks were ready, we epoxied them all together and voila! Trophies the Hocking family would be proud to earn! I wish I had thought tot take pictures, but I didn't. However, they are proudly on display in the barn in the game room at Mom and Dad's, so I'll get pictures next time we go visit.



As soon as the competition started, it was pretty apparent that J and I were totally unprepared. We opened our kit, and stared at it, hoping for inspiration or brilliance to strike us. Unfortunately, it didn't. Finally we remembered a picture book down in the basement, The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. (If you haven't read this book, you should. It's fabulous! In fact, C credits this book with her creativity and individuality today!) Basically, the main character of the story lives in a subdivision and all of the houses look the same. A bird flies by and drops a big orange splot of paint on the roof and the neighbors freak out. They want to know when he is going to fix his house. The main character thinks about it for awhile, and then, in the middle of the night, he uses a ton of other colors and paints his house. Long story short, eventually the whole neighborhood expresses their individuality by redecorating their houses. J and I thought this would be a perfect house to model our gingerbread house on!! Unfortunately, it was much harder than we thought. First the frosting was too thick, then we made it too runny. Then it soaked into the house in spots and dripped off in others. Basically, we ended up with a mess instead of a masterpiece. For the most part we kept our sense of humor. But then the time was up and we looked at our competition.



It wouldn't have been so bad if we had been competing against 3rd graders. Unfortunately, we were competing against his sisters and his parents. Mom and Dad made a replica of the barn. Including a campfire outside that was made from very thin shavings of jelly beans. A miniature version of Dad was near the fire, wearing a John Deere hat.



You've got to be kidding me.



Then we went to look at H and C's. Holy cow. Mom and Dad's looked amateurish compared to their architectural work of art. Instead of building the house as it came, they did some home renovations and created a beach bungalow with an incredible front porch. Instead of just decorating the house and the tray that it came with, they used an entire huge cookie sheet and created frosting water, colored sugar sand, rocks and boulders out of rock candy. Instead of using frosting or jelly beans on the house, they used the rock candy so it looked like a real house with stone siding. Instead of the palm trees made from cookie straws and gummy leaves like J and I used, C chopped individual squares of dark chocolate and glued them together with royal icing. They cut an opening in the wall for a window, melted jellybeans and created stained glass windows. It was incredible. You had to see it to believe it.



Then they all came to look at our monstrosity. They were very nice about it. Talked about our originality. And how it looked like the house from the story. They very gently glossed over the lumpy / watery frosting. They didn't even mention how all the colors ran together and instead of an orange splot it looked like a very large and very sick bird pooped on the roof.


As we walked around the houses again, this time with our scoring rubrics in hand, it seemed futile. We all knew who had won. But, we had to see this out. Then Mom and Dad did the math, and tallied up the scores. We wondered what was taking so long. Then we heard Dad say, "That can't be right." And more number crunching.



Turns out we were so pathetic, both other teams were very generous when they awarded us points, and apparently were not as kind to themselves.



We won.



It was almost embarrassing. We wanted to call a revote, but then we remembered the trophies and decided we would take their pity this time. But we vowed to each other right then and there that we would NOT find ourselves in the same situation next year. We were going to practice and we were going to come to the table with a game plan.



Which brings me to these pictures. I was at Wal-Mart the other day, and found a gingerbread Halloween house!!! I snagged one and hurried home to show J! He was not as enthusiastic as I had hoped he'd be. In fact, instead of jumping for joy and ripping into the box immediately as I had expected, he shook his head and said, "You are SO weird."



Apparently he has blocked from his reality the humiliation we experienced last year at the hands of his sisters. I haven't.



Pity points suck, and we don't want 'em...again. So, suck it up, cowboy, and let's decorate this house!

Here's the cookie house!

J is digging out all the supplies...

"Do we really have to do this?"

Sid started chewing on the house as soon as we turned our backs.
The frosting was powdered, we just had to add water. It was cool to see it start to turn colors as soon as the water hit it.
I thought we could just eyeball the extra 1/4 teaspoons of water we were to add until we got the right consistency. Apparently that's not a good idea. So J searched for the right utensil.

I got to mix orange, J got to mix black, his favorite color!

And we're finally started....more in another post.