It is Saturday, 11 December 2021
(W49 | D345 | 20 rem)
Today is: 
Gingerbread Decorating Day
Itâs getting closer to Christmas, a holiday associated with many traditions. One of those traditions is the baking of gingerbread. What child hasnât dreamed of baking, building and decorating an entire gingerbread house, that could then be inhabited by a colourful little gingerbread family?
Gingerbread Decorating Day is here to help all kids, from ages 1 to 92, get as much fun out of the season as possible!
âRun, run, run as fast as you can, you canât catch me, Iâm the gingerbread man!â
Gingerbread Decorating Day has been created so that we all have the perfect opportunity to practice the fun festive past-time of decorating a gingerbread house. Of course, you donât have to create a gingerbread house or man for that matter. You may want to make gingerbread in the shape of Santa or a reindeer or a Christmas tree and decorate those instead. The choice is yours!
After all, does anything give you more of a festive feeling than the smell of freshly baked gingerbread? It is quite divine!
However, a lot of people do not realize that gingerbread has a pretty interesting history. In fact, did you know that baking gingerbread was deemed a specific profession? Yes, back in the 17th century, you could only make gingerbread if you were a professional gingerbread baker, unless it was Easter or Christmas when the rest of the population could partake in the fun! We donât know about you, but that seems like a pretty awesome job, right?
In Europe, gingerbread was deemed a form of popular art. To be honest, itâs still art in our eyes! Have you seen some of those incredible gingerbread houses on Instagram? Nevertheless, it was a pretty big deal back in the day. Molds of gingerbread were used to display actual happenings through the portrayal of new rulers, as well as their parties, spouses, and their children! There are museums around the world that house substantial mold collections. Two of the most famous are the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany and the Ethnographic Museum in ToruĆ, Poland.
Gingerbread is though to have been brought to Europe by an Armenian monk named Gregory of Nicopolis in the 10th century who had brought the necessary spices back from the Middle East, and then taught the art of gingerbread making, what with the spices and the molasses, to French Christians until his death. Gingerbread then made its way around Europeâin the 13th century, it made its way to Sweden, where it was baked by nuns to help soothe indigestion.
There, it slowly became popular to paint the cookies and use them as window decorations as well. The 13th century also saw gingerbread make its debut in the city of ToruĆ in Poland, where the honey supplied by the local villages made the cookies especially delicious. To this day Pierniki ToruĆskie, as they are known in Poland, is an icon of Polandâs national cuisine.
From the 17th century onwards, gingerbread was sold in monasteries and pharmacies in England, where it was thought to have medicinal properties, and gingerbread became the symbol of the town of Market Drayton, which was particularly known for it. In the play, âLoveâs Labourâs Lostâ, Shakespeare himself wrote, âAnd I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldâ st have it to buy gingerbread.â
In 1875, the gingerbread man was first introduced to holiday traditions through a fairytale published in St. Nicholas magazine, where he was depicted as a holiday treat that was eventually eaten by a hungry fox.
Needless to say, the best way to celebrate Gingerbread Decorating Day is to make your very own gingerbread cookies - in whatever shapes you want - and then proceed to decorate them. This allows lots of room for creativity, and can be fun for the whole family! It can be the most fun when each member of the family makes, bakes and decorates his or her own gingerbread man.
After youâve made and decorated your gingerbread, members of the family can exchange cookies, and the cookies can then be eaten or hung up on the Christmas tree as decorations. Gingerbread tends to keep for long periods of time, so there is no need to worry that the cookies will start to rot or crumble.
Run, run as fast as you can! And get that gingerbread cookie mix and icing into the shopping basket! Have a great Saturday. 
