On a chilly day in late November, Torch staff members Alyson Mizanin, Kai Sprunger, Jada Davidson, Janice Chi, Sofia Giannattasio, Robyn Schoenberg, and Nathan DeSouza met together and welcomed in the holiday spirit by making gingerbread houses, an activity that was voluntary and not sponsored by Pine View. In the midst of it all, there were sneaky gumdrop robberies and fights over the two measly bags of icing; by the time all the houses were finished, it was safe to say there were successful and… well, not-so-successful gingerbread houses. Welcome to Torch Tries: Making Gingerbread Houses.
Giannattasio brought in two Mini Village Gingerbread Kits from Target, featuring four different house cookies, red and white frosting, and lots of sprinkle decorations. Mizanin brought out utensils and napkins, and the assembly commenced.
The Beginning Stage of Construction (One Minute In):
Everybody broke apart the cookie walls and began carefully applying icing to the edges.
“My house is going to have the most icing,” Davidson said as she squeezed a bag of icing in attempts to keep her gingerbread house together.
A Grapple With Icing (40 Minutes In):
Davidson stopped trying to save her gingerbread house, stood up, and said, “My house is like me: very unstable.” Then she added, “Just when you think we’re fine, BAM. It all falls apart.”
“I’m struggling,” Chi said as she added some of the candies to her house.
“Oh, girl…” Schoenberg said, glancing to her left and saw Davidson’s mess of gingerbread, icing, and candies.
“It definitely shows the different sorts of people,” Davidson said as she scanned the different houses, from her incredibly messy and struggling gingerbread creation, which was by no means a house, to DeSouza’s masterpiece, which looked like it belonged on the front of any store-found gingerbread house box.
The Eternal Waiting (57 Minutes In):
Waiting a long time for the two icing bags to be passed around the table was a very common activity.
“This should be a story on patience,” Schoenberg said.
“Can I have the icing?” Giannattasio asked after Schoenberg finished talking.
“No,” Chi said.
(Practice Does Not Make Perfect) 58 minutes in:
Chi gained hold of the red icing and spread it all over her house. When finished, she looked at her house and realized she may have added a little too much of it to her creation.
“Oh no, it looks like a bloody mess,” Chi said.
“This is just suffering…” Davidson said, as her house refused to stand up, no matter how much icing she put on it.
“I’ve actually never had a structurally sound gingerbread house,” Schoenberg said, managing to fit all the pieces of her house together and make it stand up.
Suddenly, DeSouza stood up, pushed his chair back and said, “This is a ‘Torch Tries’, not a ‘Torch Perfects.'”
(Gory Architecture) 77 Minutes In:
Upon finishing working with the red icing, Schoenberg took a moment to look at her house with slight disappointment.
“This looks like the house is bleeding…” she said.
“It’s a different aesthetic!” Sprunger said, trying to make Schoenberg feel better.
“It’s alt,” Davidson said.
Davidson, deciding to make the best of her situation and decorate each broken piece of her house, ate the separate parts. It wasn’t what she wanted, but she was happy with it anyway, despite all its imperfections.
“I had a vision for this, but it definitely did not work out,” she said.
(The End) 79 Minutes In:
“Whoa, it actually stands up!” Sprunger said as she put all the pieces of her gingerbread house together with some difficulty.
After a whopping 98 minutes, everyone involved had completed their gingerbread houses. Some looked like they were professionally made, while others were just given up on and eaten as cookies, but overall, we definitely recommend this experience.
5/5 Torches
A QR code to this article appears in print on Dec. 16, 2022, Entertainment, Page 7, of The Torch.
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