Deconstructing Gingerbread Town
In the final moments of 2015 as the holiday season wraps up, treatment I ask you this question…how much do you really know about Gingerbread Town?
Gingerbread Town (that’s the name I alone have given it, of course) is the impressively sugar stacked collection of chalets and free standing dwellings that has been on prominent display in the Pfister Lobby during the full extant of the holiday season. It is literally eye candy.
It’s unclear to me if my fascination with minutiae is a blessing or a curse, but for the purposes of a tour through Gingerbread Town let’s just call my obsessive tick a seasonal mitzvah. I’ve spent some considerable time gazing at Gingerbread Town this year and I’ve determined without a shadow of a doubt that it is a particularly charming place to live. But trust me, there’s more going on there than meets the eye.
You may not be aware of this, but Donner the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman are comfortable to proudly show their love for one another on the streets of Gingerbread Town.
I’m thrilled about a place where the streets are lined with cotton candy and the air bristles with open and affirming love. It’s hard to see in this picture, but Frosty is blushing (which, truth be told, is not the best of things for the old snow puss as that sort of romantic heat sometimes melts his cheek right off onto the floor).
At Amber’s Café, you know you’ll always have a great meal.
Look at Joe and Marla Stinson, longtime residents of Gingerbread Town, bellies full as they relax on the bench outside Amber’s. They just finished a nourishing lunch of gingerbread cookie beer, gingerbread cookie casserole, gingerbread candy, and a warm gingerbread tea. They were celebrating their anniversary, so Amber sent a special delivery to their table, of course—a gingerbread cookie cake. Joe and Marla can’t get enough of Amber’s and they told me that they’ll probably be the first in line for the evening gingerbread cookie hot buffet and gingerbread cookie salad bar. They proudly showed me their AARP cards and said, “We have a coupon!”
You’ll always catch customers from Amber’s Café stopping into Jen’s Clothes to buy a new scarf, pair of winter boots or wool cap.
Jen’s once tried stocking swim trunks and bikinis, but the only one who bought any of those was Gundry Henshaw, and everyone has always had suspicions that the time Scotty Knorwald hit him in the head with a snowball left him a little off.
If I lived in Gingerbread Town, I’d absolutely want to live in the Gingerbread Village Condos.
It’s an impressive high rise, don’t you think? And who can argue about living in a place that promises there’s a live-in super who spends his day chopping wood for every resident’s wood burning stove. Plus, I understand they’re pet friendly and every unit has a Lake of Gumdrop view, and those are so tough to come by these days.
You don’t live in Gingerbread Town without making a visit to Michelle’s Skis.
It’s really the only way to get around town, what with hoverboards now being outlawed by Mayor Shimble out of fear of scorched cookie roads and cotton candy lanes.
One sort of sad story I heard as I talked to Gingerbread Town residents was that after who knows how many years of business, Chrissy’s Sweets is closing up shop.
Chrissy made the decision to retire and move South after she decided she wanted to go gluten free. Candy is okay, though. Chrissy has handed over the keys to the candy castle, and there’s a new owner moving in who promises to carry on Chrissy’s traditions with his own special twist for modern palettes. I’m excited to see what Carlos’ Organic Gluten Free Sweets and Kale Juice Bar has to offer. All eyes are going to be on Gingerbread Town in 2016…who knows, they might even get an IKEA this year.
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