MICHAEL ON DESIGN

Tow weeks ago Kerry Zurn asked me if Marblehead 2020 was interested in submitting a gingerbread house for the Gingerbread Festival at the Lee

Mansion. The creations would be auctioned off and the money given to charity. Sounds easy enough, I thought. How hard could it be? After all, I’m an architect for God sakes! Secretly I knew I had a weapon who’s participation in this endeavor would be absolutely critical. That weapons’ name was Brenda Aragon.

  

Brenda has been our nanny for our  kids for longer than I can remember. Easily more than the 7 years of my son’s life. Brenda is from Guatemala. She told me gingerbread was invented there and they make houses out of Gingerbread straw. Great I thought, this ought to be a slam dunk. Now what to build……….Then it came to me, The Warwick! Simple enough, flat façade, small overhanging marquee, no sweat. I made a mock up of the building in cardboard and brought it home to Brenda whereupon she told me she had never made a gingerbread house from scratch before. No problem I thought. We can do this. How hard can it be? I mean, I’m an architect, right. I do this all the time, right? Wrong! The following day Brenda made the base using the cardboard templates from the mock up and Deanna and I decorated it with frosting, gum drops, NECCO wafers and M&M’s. When the roof began to collapse under the weight of the frosting and candy, I made a few quick engineering adjustments and we were back in business. We all thought it looked like a winner until we got to the Lee

Mansion to drop it off. That’s when the cruel, hard, reality of our endeavor set in. There they were, spectacular confectionary edifices resplendent in clear candy glass windows with flashing colored lights, gum brick faced schools, cookie roofed churches, pretzel windows and icicles made of frosting lovingly pulled to perfection. It didn’t take very long to realize this was not just any ordinary gingerbread display.

Apparently gingerbread builder don’t have day jobs, screaming kids eating up all the building materials and house cleaning duties. It’s also apparent that planning these spectacular creations must begin around February of the previous year. Hours if not days or weeks of time must have been devoted to these sugary delights. Brenda and I looked at each other gulped, pasted on a sketchy smile and went into the building. We had  maybe 8 hours into this thing and one night to let it dry. A far cry from the months of planning and building that went into many of the other spectacular displays. I think my 4 year old daughter put it best. Dad, you said we were definitely going to win. We’re going to get killed in this place.  In the end we had a respectable showing. We had tickets in our bag, not as much as some but any ticket was lovingly accepted as a gesture of support for our efforts. Thanks to all of you who voted for us and to the rest of you, wow, you’re good, really really good. Congratulations to everybody who made this such a wonder event. Like the old Red Sox, just wait until next year. Many thanks to all the organizers and all the creators of the nearly 40 buildings. The bar has been set and we’re making our plans right now.

Sincerely, 

Michael McCloskey President of Marblehead 2020 and the Warwick Community Theater Foundation. 

  

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