Page 32 of Unwrapped

“I'm never going to live that down, am I?” I say when I catch up to him.

“Not anytime soon, no.”

“Great. Something to look forward to.”

He chuckles, and and offers me his hand as we round the corner, and I take it.

We keep skating for a while longer, making each other laugh, until we’re too cold to continue.

We sit on the bench to take off our skates. My feet are freezing, and my toes are numb. Vince pours out two more cups of hot chocolate and I drink it, grateful for the warmth, although it’s only lukewarm. Then he packs it into his coat pocket and stands up, offering me his hand.

“Ready to head back?”

I take it, and we walk together down the path through the trees, back home.

The neighborhood is Christmas-card perfect in the near-dark. Every house is lit with strings of colored lights along eaves, wreaths on the doors, inflatable Santas swaying gently in front yards. Windows glow warm against the cold.

The lake house appears at the end of the cul-de-sac, its windows lit, the snow-covered Christmas lights on the deck railings creating colored pools of light.

“Pasta okay?” asks Vince, as we peel off our coats in the foyer.

“Perfect.”

We abandon our boots and coats in the mudroom, and head into the kitchen. Vince starts pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator while I turn toward the cupboards, looking for a snack, and spot the enormous gingerbread-house box still sitting above the microwave.

I’d completely forgotten about our ninety-dollar architectural masterpiece.

“Oh! We have to make that.”

Vince follows my gaze. “Oh boy.”

“C’mon! It’s Christmas Eve. When else are we going to make a Christmas gingerbread house?”

“I was hoping you’d forgotten about it.”

“Not a chance.”

After dinner, we clear the kitchen island and unpack enough gingerbread to construct a small subdivision. There are walls, roof sections, two turrets, an elaborate wraparound porch, tiny candy-cane columns, sugar windows, and several decorative pieces I can’t even identify. I line up the bags of sweets while Vince unfolds the instructions, which are printed on a sheet of paper roughly the size of a road map.

I open a bag of gumdrops and eat one while he’s distracted.

The instructions tell us to assemble the walls first and allow the icing to set for thirty minutes before attempting the roof. Vince insists we follow the directions precisely, which is probably sensible, given that the house has more separate components than some actual buildings. I put on Christmas music while we work on the shutters, the front door, and the little sugar-glass windows, which are remarkably pretty when I hold them up to the kitchen lights.

The trouble begins with the roof. One side fits beautifully, but the other keeps sliding out of place, taking half the porch with it.

“Hold that straight,” Vince instructs, pointing to the opposite wall.

He steps around the island and examines the offending joint. “Needs more icing.”

I hold the wall in place while he applies another thick line of icing, and after several minutes of increasingly serious discussion about whether the roof is going to stay attached, we finally manage to get it secured.

Unfortunately, the left turret is now listing to one side.

I try to disguise the problem with another hunk of icing, but now it just looks as though the house has sprung a leak. One of the candy-cane columns breaks when I try to attach it to the porch and Vince finds a way to prop it up using more icing.

I add the last few gumdrops to the porch railing while Vince steps back to inspect our creation.

“Well?” I ask.