When I was just four years old, I made this gingerbread house with my parents. I remember staying up till all hours of the night—remember I was four so late was, say, 11, if not earlier—to make this gingerbread house alone with my parents, for both of my siblings had gone to bed. Obviously, from my face, a lot of the candy didn’t make it onto the gingerbread house. The next morning I woke up and went to see my gingerbread house, just to find that during the night it had fallen in! My parents had stayed up all night doing what they could to get the house to stay up; I’ve even heard that my dad put cans inside of it! But nothing worked, the gingerbread house, obviously from the picture unstable, had completely fallen in. I remember being devastated that the first gingerbread house that I had ever made had fallen in. Apparently this made some kind of impression on me, or it was just a memorable experience, because I can almost clearly see parts of that night, as if it was yesterday. Maybe it was the fact that my parents let me stay up “late,” or the fact that I got to spend time alone with my parents without my siblings. I don’t know why, but I will always remember that gingerbread house.

- AllisonW