best of ginger (so far)

It’s that time of year again! Ginger 2017 is just around the corner! I’m really hoping that each and every one of you will enter. (Pleeeeeeeeze?) I figured you might need a little nudge/ginspiration, so I have corralled some of my most favourite entries the past seven years of competitions for your enjoyment.

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Yvonne’s Gingerbread House of Pain (2011)

Yvonne’s entry was submitted with the following descriptor:

After spending yet another Christmas Eve together, brothers Sven and Olaf ended the evening with Sven popping a cap into the back of Olaf’s head. Apparently, all that annoying throat clearing finally got to Sven. Sven can be seen here, digging a grave for his brother. 

Next Christmas could prove very lonely indeed for poor Sven.

Look, people. I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU THAT THIS SORT OF ENTRY IS THE BEST SORT OF ENTRY! Murder, candy, murder. THE WHOLE PACKAGE.

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Nikki’s Gingerbread Man Factory (2012)

That ginger factory is massive cool – there’s some serious attention to detail happenin’. And yet, I bet most of you have the skills to assemble something just as badass. I think this entry would make a great book — imagine pouring over pages and pages of teeny-tiny ginger workers! Plus, I bet a lot of people have been wondering about how and where gingerbread people are constructed. Mystery solved…

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Cassie and Dan’s Ice House (2013)

Cassie and Dan sent the following message along with their sugary entry:

This is the ice house. Built by cold hands in frigid conditions. Be ware of the grumpy snowman. And smurf near the tree keep your eye on the owl. 

I want you to read that last sentence again:

And smurf near the tree keep your eye on the owl.

What the? What the heck does that sentence mean?

I see the owl. I do not see the smurf. Where is the surf? Wait… is it that teeny-tiny blue head by the little house? The house by the liquorice tree? I think it is! Wait, what… what is the owl doing? Is the owl… is it going to eat… IS THE OWL PLANNING TO EAT THE SMURF? SMURF NEAR THE TREE KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE OWL!!! SMURF NEAR THE TREE KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE OWL!

Aaaaaand now I understand.

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Katherine & Scott’s Fish Bowl / Gingerbread Snowglobe (2014)

Katherine sent the following information with her entry:

When I was a kid, I dropped my family’s beautiful glass snowglobe one Christmas. It shattered and all the water and the little house and the reindeer came tumbling out. I cried about it for hours because at that point in my life I had no perspective. If I had known then that my goldfish would die from farting too much (this is a real thing. I asked a vet.) or that I would need braces for 4 freaking years, or that I would never truly grow a pair of boobs, well. . . the snowglobe might not have seemed like such a big deal, but there you have it.  

Anyway, check out my brand new gingerbread snowglobe!! It’s much better than the original. The house is made out of gingerbread and icing and cereal and you can’t see it but there’s a little computer fan behind it that *in theory* blows glitter around inside the dome. It didn’t work but we totally tried. Fittingly, the dome is made out of the fish bowl that the farty fish lived in thirty years ago. YES I WASHED IT.  

Katherine, I’d like to start by telling you a fun fact about farting — more specifically, not farting. It can kill you. I know this because someone I know knows someone who died of politeness. In other words: that dead person held in his farts and died of implosion. I think it happened at the dinner table. Which would be way more embarrassing than breaking your family’s favourite snow globe.

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Aino’s Baba Yaga’s Little House in the Forest sans Forest (2016)

Aino sent A LOT of information with her entry. You can read the deets here, but some highlights include:

This is a plan B entry, since every time I tried to make the magical, mysterious and faintly spooky version of Baba Yaga’s house, the one I remember from books I read with a shiver under the covers when I was a kid, things fell off. Fell apart. And fell short.

Okay, I know what most of you are thinking: who the hell is Baba Yaga? And once again, Ginger becomes gingercational. Baba Yaga is a supernatural witch-like being. She lives in the forest in a hut that stands on chicken legs. She maaaaaay have an appetite for eating people. Oh, and instead of flying around on a broomstick, she sits in a mortar and drives very fast on and just above the forest floor. Yes, you read that right. Her main mode of transportation is a bowl.

Baking chicken foot in the armature? Once the dough got nice and hot in the oven, the thigh ginger fell off first. In swollen blobs which stuck to the carefully formed foot as they baked.

THIGH GINGER. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Since ginger on the upper part of the chicken leg was not to be, I shaped the thigh with paper towel and sewed it to the armature, covering it with icing to which I thought shaved coconut feathers could be encouraged to stick.

Thought I was okay, but now the thought of a thigh covered in shaved coconut feathers has kind of set me off again.

The fluffy coconut feathers were moulting madly while photos were being taken. This disturbed the shredded wheat straw artistically scattered around the chicken foot, as I hastily scrabbled the moulted coconut shavings out of the way.

I’M THROWING UP NOW.

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Bella and Emma’s Stranger Danger (2014)

Quite possibly my most favourite entry of all time, Bella and her friend Emma sent this festive (read: horrifying) story with their entry. I’ve helped with a little copy editing and punctuation, but other than that, the tale is all theirs:

Hansel (Bella) and Gretel (Emma) were walking in the winter wonderland woods one day and saw a beautiful house made of gingerbread and candy. It was sparkly and glittery! They knew a wicked but beautiful witch lived somewhere in the woods that killed children and ate them up for Christmas (1 for each of the 12 days of Christmas). But this house was too good to be true so they dashed to the house and started eating the tree, then the pond, then the house…

Alright. There is some serious foreshadowing happening here. But did you see that house up there? I’d eat it too!

A beautiful lady came out and said, “Children!!!!! Come over to my tree.”

The children went over and sat in the snow. “Lets play a game,” said the witch. “You come over here and prop yourself on the tree,” she pointed to Gretel. “Now I’ll tie you up here and you close your eyes and count to ten.”

Sure. Why wouldn’t you let a known murderer tie you to a tree? DON’T DO IT GRETEL!

“You too!” said the witch, pointing at Hansel. The children slowly counted to ten and as they did, the witch tied Hansel up as well and shot them both with an arrow.

WAIT. WHAT?! SHE SHOT THEM BOTH WITH AN ARROW? Things have taken a sharp turn.

Later on the witch put snow on the tree to hide the blood that was from the children.

WHAT?! Aw, no! We’re gunna need the crew from CSI to get all up in this scene.

“Now to the tipi!” said the witch and carried the children away with her.

Tipi? I don’t see a tipi. This seems random. Bella? Emma? WHAT TIPI?

She went into her “tipi,” which was actually an oven where she cooked the children. 

Of course it was.

It was Christmas Eve and the witch was all ready for her Christmas day dinner! She was sick of fasting.

Lesson learned. Fasting makes you murderous. Nice holiday lesson, girls.

“I’ll have this Hansel girl for Christmas day,” said the witch, “And I’ll have this girl Gretel for boxing day!”

The next evening she had a wonderful feast and had the rest of her frozen stash of children for the rest of the 12 days of Christmas!

Weeeeell. I don’t think there’s anything more to say, do you?

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Guys, that’s just a few of my favourite Ginger entries. If you’d like to check out all of the entries — seven years worth of holiday cheer — click here.

Still need more encouragement? Click below to read a ginspirational message AND THEN ENTER GINGER 2017! (Entry details coming soon!)