A Red Christmas

It’s not a gingerbread house. It’s a war zone.

“That’s MINE!” screeches my darling granddaughter as she grabs the sprinkles back from her brother.

One grandson runs circles around the table, pausing every few seconds to snatch another handful of sugar.

Decorating the gingerbread house has been my favorite holiday tradition for 50 years. Baking the house from scratch used to take three days. The dogs ate at least four. Sunlight collapsed others. Sometimes they simply cracked or buckled. I always made another one.

I might just skip next year.

“That’s a lot of red.” I’m distributing extra sprinkles, frosting, and candy to my helpers. This year, all the grandkids gathered to decorate. I have tiny individual houses for each child plus two regular-sized for the adults. My daughters-in-law claimed one for girls. My oldest grandson and my son hunch over the second.

“It’s blood,” my grandson says. “See, that’s a canon, and it’s blown the soldiers to bits.” Tootsie Rolls shaped into balls are the ammunition. Another Tootsie Roll is a cannon. Bits and pieces of what I now see are body parts litter the yard.

His father once crafted a Tootsie Roll dog, along with Tootie Roll dog pooh. Do not buy Tootsie Rolls next year, I think.

My youngest grandson is nowhere in sight. I find him playing with candy in the toilet. I grab him, strip off his clothes, and wash his hands. By the time I get back to the melee, the cannon has collapsed one side of the guys’ house and is aiming for the front door.

Candy sidewalks, a pond, and ice cream cone trees sparkle from the girls’ house. My granddaughter has icing up her nose, in her hair, and pastes candy to her arms with more icing.

My grandson and son cackle as the opposing armies advance on the poor house. “Mom,” my son says, “we need more red icing.”

“There isn’t any,” I lie.

One grandson piled so much frosting and candy on his little house, it collapses. The dogs are drunk on sugar.

“It’s not very Christmasy,” I tell the boys.

“Think Bastogne and Battle of the Bulge. That happened at Christmas,” my son says.

“He’s right,” my grandson, a student of American history, says.

I surrender and hand over the red icing.