My son’s teacher asked me last week if I’d be will­ing to bake some gin­ger­bread men for his class. On Thurs­day the kids are going to go on a gin­ger bread man hunt-and come back to their class to find one wait­ing for them at their desk. The kids will then get to dec­o­rate the lit­tle guys, fol­lowed by a mas­sacre where they’ll can­ni­bal­ize the lit­tle pip­squeaks. I imag­ine they’ll start  by bit­ing off their gin­ger bread man’s head, feet, or arms. I’m com­forted by the thought that the Gin­ger­bread Man’s demise will be quick. Poor lit­tle guy.

I vol­un­teered to be the class mom. The sit­u­a­tion with our hav­ing only one car makes me feel like a schmuck because there isn’t much I can do to help his teacher (who is great, and wonderful-exactly as a kinder­garten teacher should be); so when she asked I said yes with out hes­i­ta­tion. More out of sheer guilt-than any desire to bake gin­ger­bread men. Plus I have this syndrome-it’s called over-achiver-ism.

I said to my self. “Self, You can do this. What’s a gin­ger­bread man any­way? He’s this lit­tle guy, who runs away, and can’t be caught… right? He’s elusive…mysterious…So what? Hmph… Who cares that I’ve never made them before and that I don’t have the slight­est inkling as to what actu­ally goes into a gin­ger­bread man (besides gin­ger of course) but, I can totally do this…totally. I rock after all.

Why? Why couldn’t I just have said, “Teach, baking…it’s not really my thing.”

I don’t like to bake. Well, that’s not entirely true. I actu­ally do enjoy it. (Shhh…Don’t tell anyone-especially my hus­band who thinks him­self the pre­miere baker in the fam­ily.) The prob­lem is the end result of my bak­ing mas­ter­pieces (although tasty) never turn out as pretty as the pic­ture was in my head-or cookbook.

If I’m to be per­fectly hon­est,  I’m a lit­tle scared. I’ve never baked a gin­ger­bread man before, and my first attempt is going to be sent to a bunch of kinder­gart­ners. The most astute food critic hasn’t a thing on five year old kids. Espe­cially when it comes to being bru­tally hon­est about what they do and don’t like-especially regard­ing food-and the most impor­tant food group of all…Cookies!

I wish I was Martha Stew­art. I do. At the very least I wish I had her on speed-dial. I’m sure she’d be able to calm my nerves and tell me that gin­ger­bread men are a “good thing” and a piece of cake to make.

I’ve got the crafty thing down pact, I’m a pretty good cook (or so I’ve been told), and aside from my cre­ations turn­ing out lop­sided, or droopy I can bake…I suppose.

What sur­prises me the most is-I’m kind of excited to bake them. Read­ing this arti­cle on Martha Stew­art (she is, after all my go to girl for these sort of things), and doing a bit of Googling (I found this arti­cle on The Joy of Baking’s web­site.)  I’m sur­prised to say has made me totally moti­vated. I’m gonna kick some gin­ger­bread man butt!

I’m already imag­in­ing myself, imag­in­ing that I’m tap­ing an episode of Martha Stew­art. In my fan­tasy I’m her excep­tion­ally tal­ented guest, there to teach her a thing or two about gin­ger, bread, and men all while being witty, charm­ing, and per­fectly poised, dressed in some­thing fab­u­lous– as I pre­pare those lit­tle guys in my kitchen tomorrow…Without all the hot lights, and Martha look­ing over my shoul­der of course.

I know, I have a dis­ease. I have a very over active imag­i­na­tion that I indulge completely.

Don’t be sur­prised if I become a bit crazed over gin­ger­bread men in the com­ing days. I totally want to put some on the Christ­mas Tree, make a wreath, or use them as gift tags.

The down­side is, I can’t even have Mike help me with them, because it’s sup­posed to be a sur­prise. I’ll bake them tomor­row when he’s at school. He loves to bake, so I’ll have him help me whip some up for the tree or for us, with the sole pur­pose of par­tak­ing in our own bit of gin­ger­bread men car­nage at home. I’m sure his baby brother would love a stab at one!

I’ll post pic­tures and an update on how things go later in the week.

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