by Linda Pedersen (better known as “Gramma”)

My husband, Dean, and I have been married almost 48 years, and lived most of our married life in Illinois. We have three children, who now range from 40 to 47, and five grandchildren, who now range from 9 to 15, along with two more kids from Russia, who have no living grandparents, and call us Gramma and Poppy also.

My “gingerbread tale” starts 48 years ago, when I took a cake decorating course as a bride. When my kids were preschoolers, I saw a newspaper article on a simple gingerbread house. I fell in love, and immediately made a pattern for a 15 inch tall house, using the recipe published in the local paper. With my few decorating tips, I jumped right in, and for the first few years we did one house for our family on the weekend after Thanksgiving, finishing with “eating” it New Year’s Day. This evolved over the years to making dozens of gingerbread houses to sell at craft fairs, and then as my kids were teenagers, we made dozens of houses for charity auctions/sales. Sometime in this journey, we developed a “half-size” pattern, which ends up as 8 inches tall.

When the grandkids started coming, I would make the shell of the house for each child, put a pile of candy in the center of the table and we would have a decorating party. This quickly included neighbor kids, nieces and nephews, and friends’ kids.

In 2001, we retired to Mooresville, NC to be near our youngest grandchildren, and after a couple of years, the other three kids and their parents moved to Mooresville for three years. We read about the Grove Park National Gingerbread Contest, and decided we could enter! My oldest granddaughter, who was 9 at the time, made a very elementary entry, and we headed to the Grove Park contest. What a surprise we had! The entries were amazing!!! Of course, we didn’t win, but instead of being discouraged, we planned our next year’s entry on the way home! The next year, Jacqueline, made an entry with the two neighbor girls, Alyssa and Kaylynn Mercuri—a very rough version of the Biltmore mansion. The same year the other four grandkids, then 4 through 7. made a little village. Again, we didn’t place, but loved the process, and we were hooked!

The next year, 2006, Jacqueline, made a giant orange Chinese dragon, and won the Chef’s Award at Grove Park Inn. The younger three cousins, made a pumpkin village, with two large pumpkin houses and one large black cat house. Again, it was back home to the drawing board, laughing all the way!

The older cousins moved back to Illinois, and so they are not close enough to continue with the contest, although they still occasionally make a house of their own. During these years, as my youngest two granddaughters were in preschool and lower grade school, our family would have a giant baking day, involving all 12 of us, my daughter’s two ovens and the neighbor’s oven, we would make enough shells of small gingerbread houses for the preschool and/or grade school class. One year we made 120 shells for Cannon School 3rd grade, and then supervised while their moms brought the candy and frosting. What a party!! And isn’t that what this if about—the kids!!

Three years ago, Karley and Danielle entered the Grove Park Inn contest together with a Christmas Light House. They worked for three months, and it was really spectacular. They won 4th place, which is a great honor, when you realize this was out of 150 children’s entries!

Last year, Grove Park split the kids’ categories, 5 to 8, and 9 to 12. Danielle, then 8, made Santa’s RV, and this included a giant red RV, with a black belt around the center, a chimney on top, with Santa’s backside and feet sticking out, as he was too fat to go down the chimney. In front of the RV were elves and reindeer roasting marshmallows around a fire, a giant Christmas tree, and sign announcing “Jollystone RV Park”. Danielle again won a 4th place ribbon, out of app. 60 entries. Karley, then 10, made a nativity scene, with all the items: an inn, a stable, three kings and their camels, shepherds and their sheep, a cow in the stable, and, of course, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. On the front of the board was a gingerbread Bible, with the Christmas story written on edible paper, and a gold edge on the edges. It’s title was “No Room”. Karley placed in the top ten also, out of about 100 entries.

This year, we just got back from the Grove Park Inn. What an exciting day—November 16th, 2009!
Karley, 11, and Danielle, 9, won Second Place in the Youth category, out of approximately 70 entries.
Their combined entry was a dream of Karley’s for the last three years—America’s Melting Pot, which included a large gingerbread bowl, covered in icing, holding the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Next to the bowl stood the Statute of Liberty. Around the bowl included gingerbread boys/girls dressed from different parts of the world, a hula dancer, oriental kimono, a British soldier, an eskimo, a Dutch girl, and Mexican guy, and small replicas of Big Ben, a Chinese dragon, a grass hut, a ladder up the side of the bowl, and a giant spoon in the pot for stirring the Red, White, and Blue Soup. On the front of the board was Lady Freedom’s Recipe Card, on edible paper, with the inscription, “Send me your tired, humble…..”, again decorated in Red, White, and Blue. This entry was very difficult, and resulted in a lot of planning, re-planning, adjusting, and trial and a lot of errors! But what a journey we had, and what a great response we had from the judges at the contest. They loved the creativity of the entry! We are all still smiling. And again, we had discussed last week how this may be our last entry, because of time constraints and the girls’ schedules. However, on the way home from Asheville, all I heard was another huge plan for next year’s entry, which has been in the back of the girls’ minds the last couple of years. So look for us at Grove Park in 2010! We would love to be standing behind the “Blue Ribbon”!!!