Kindness Advent Calendar: December 12, 2023 (Day 12)
Do You Know The Gingerbread Man?
Welcome to Day 12 of your Kindness Advent Calendar! Throughout December, we will provide you with your daily act of kindness through our Kindness Advent Calendar! Come and celebrate the holiday season as we are kind all December long.
Gingerbread House Day on December 12th recognizes a family tradition for many around the country.
A favorite food of an Armenian monk, Gregory of Nicopolis, brought gingerbread to Europe around 992 AD and taught French Christians to bake it. Since gingerbread was often used in religious ceremonies, monks baked it to be sturdy to mold into images of saints.
We can thank the brothers Grimm for a gingerbread house, though. Through their tale of Hansel and Gretel, they introduce an evil witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread. It didn't take long for the German gingerbread guilds to pick up the idea. Soon, they put gingerbread houses to more festive use making snowy cottages made from the spicy-sweet treat.
Today, we can spend the day baking, cutting, and building to our heart's delight. Kits take some steps out of the process so we can get right down to constructing our winter wonderlands.
How To Observe:
- Gather the family together, bake up some gingerbread, and start building and decorating your very own gingerbread house.
- Reading Hansel and Gretel.
- Hosting a house-building party.
- Touring gingerbread displays.
- Use #GingerbreadHouseDay to post on social media.
"I thought maybe we could make gingerbread houses, and eat cookie dough and go ice skating and maybe even hold hands."
~ Will Ferrell as 'Buddy the Elf'