Frelinghuysen Arboretum Gingerbread Wonderland Opens November 30

Friday, November 30, 2018 Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morris Township will open its doors to the 27th annual Gingerbread Wonderland Exhibit.

The exhibition will be open from 10 am - 4:30 pm daily (Fridays until 7:30pm) through Sun Dec 9.

Visitors can vote for their favorites in each of six categories: Adult, Family, Children, School, Scout and Special Needs.

Gingerbread Making Tell-All

I thought it would be fun for our family to participate. I had visions of Sugar Plums, me, my husband and our 8 and 10-year olds merrily putting on decorations. I had no idea how much work this truly would be!

To preface what I am about to write, know this:

Managing the construction of a 2 square foot Gingerbread scene is serious business. It involves frighteningly fragile cookies, manufacturing massive amounts of sticky frosting, lingering food products that are attractive to pets and children and a resultant bulky, yet delicate project that takes up a surprising amount of space in your home.

I will rate the fun on a Gingerbread Scale (1 - Smiley Gingerbread Person (we had fun!), 2 - Flat line Gingerbread Mouth (this was work, but it was OK!) 3 - Upside down smile AKA grimace (tension in Gingerbread Wonderland)

Step 1 | Dough Making, Gingerbread Scale=1
You must make dough. Note that it needs time to firm, so we gave it a day in the refrigerator. My daughters and I enjoyed this, digging our fingers into the mixture with gusto.

Step 2| Taking Shape, Gingerbread Scale=1
We created a pattern and cut out the gingerbread -the dough was thick enough that we cut it with a pizza cutter, then baked.

Step 3| Gum Drop Sourcing, Gingerbread Scale=1
I took the girls to Dollar Tree in Parsippany and we had fun finding many different decorating candies and a foam core board that I thought would be a good base for our project.

Step 4| Making Mortar, Gingerbread Scale=1
The first batch of royal icing was exhilarating. The girls and I stood next to my trusty Kitchen Aid Mixer and admired our creation - a substance unlike any yielded by our other baking endeavors - it was comparable to caulk. My husband loaded into the tool we'd bought at Michael's, which, fittingly looked like a small caulk gun.

Unfortunately, our "caulk" was not the quick set type. My husband and I found ourselves in a game of Twister, leaning at various angles across the dining room table, trying not to lose our grip waiting slowly for the frosting to harden. We came to a realization - this was a gingerly process. Each gingerbread component leaned on another and it needed to thoroughly dry in stages.

Step 5| Takeover of the Dining Room Table, Gingerbread Scale=2
Our days started to blend into one another, as we found ourselves spending evenings making more royal icing, adding another side, the front of the house, a gingerbread support for the roof, etc.

Roofing was the final and toughest building work - we wiped sweat from our brows, as we came to new realizations about the inter-dependencies in home construction; a roof provides protection and is the difference between a home and a labrynth, but the walls must be strong, straight and aligned precisely with the roof's pitch. If they are not, the icing becomes a ski slope and the pieces slide maddeningly apart again and again. The answer is patience and Campbell's soup cans - aligning one side, with a wall of cans to hold it, then waiting for what turned into 2 days for it to dry before repeating on the other side.

Step 6| Decorating=2
Dire warnings were issued to children. Pets were on watch. No one was to touch this tentative structure. More icing was made, a design was initiated. Assignments were handed out begrudgingly and only to those with steady hands who could reach the area in question. One daughter sprinkled glittery, snow-like sprinkles. Another designed a footpath of Smarties. My husband and I were starting to get edgy - he did the housework (painting designs on that structure), while I attended to the gardening (filling the outside space).

Step 7| Christmas and Thanksgiving Collide = 3
Thanksgiving came and it was either the gingerbread house or the turkey for dinner. The winner was clear. The Gingerbread house moved to the top of the washing machine. While the machine did not run, the icing did! The heat in the room made the words cry on my painstakingly written Grinch signs - I was now the grump. There was only one move - to the cold recesses of the garage, which I approached with trepidation, because surely we would soon find out if we had a mouse!

Step 7| The Transport=3
The day came when Frelinghuysen Arboretum would accept our entry! Luckily, there were no mouse nibbles. I sat on the floor of my garage sadly with a plastic butter knife and some icing attempting to fix my runny signs, without success. My husband solemnly put the posterboard onto a piece of cement board, which made it too big for my lap, so it rode alone, unprotected in the trunk.

We found ourselves in stop-and-go-traffic arguing over its safekeeping. We followed our GPS, which seemed designed by a gingerbread competitor, as it took us over bumpy railroad tracks, then down a surprising, windy path through Morristown police headquarters, ending at a dead-end resulting in turning around and a second trip over railroad trips, before arriving at the nearly vertical incline of Frelinghuysen Arboretum.

We opened the trunk with trepidation, expecting shattered cookie and the demise of the Grinch. However, it stood proudly, with its slightly sad, droopy sign. We each grabbed a side of our cement board and side-stepped awkwardly towards the long entrance.

Upon entrance, we were directed to a spot next to a large, elaborately designed gingerbread bear and a castle that was nicer than my home. We moved our amateur offering nearer our own type of people - a more working class gingerbread neighborhood.

The End
Visit the Maroldi Gingerbread House alongside many others at Gingerbread Wonderland starting Friday, November 30th!