Snowman Got His Own Fire

We decorated gingerbread houses last night. Of course, being the Laws, we cannot just decorate gingerbread houses—we must compete. So for days, we had agreed that we would have boys versus girls, that is, Graham and me versus Lauren, Lucia, and Lindsay. Graham, who never lacks for self-confidence, said the whole week, “Obviously, we’re gonna win.”

As we unpacked the kits and laid out the pieces, Lauren made additional frosting, and the girls discussed who should be judges. At last, they agreed that their boyfriends—Brayden Becker (Lucia’s) and Carson Smith (Lindsay’s)—would be impartial. This is, of course, ridiculous, but that’s what they decided. I’m pretty certain the girls felt that they had tipped the scales in their favor because after all who wouldn’t vote for their significant other’s work? I know who: boys who are trying to win the favor of said significant’s father.

After we used icing to glue the gingerbread in place, I said to Graham, “All right, dude, what’s our killer design?”

“A trap house,” he said.

“A trap house?”

“Yeah, like this.” And he pulled up his phone and showed me this picture.

“All right, here we go then.”

I laid a line of icing at the peak of the roof. “Put the gingerbread man there,” Graham said.

I did so.

“Okay, now put three straight lines in front of him down the roof.”

“But the roof has diagonals.”

“Come on, Dad. Do straight lines.”

“Why?”

“You know, Dad. Lines.“

“Ohhhh . . . lines of coke.”

“Yes!”

So I laid down three straight lines. “That’s not good enough, though,” I said. I pulled out a bag of white sugar crystals. “Those lines should really be dusted with powder.” And I dusted the straight lines with those white crystals.

We looked over, and the girls were creating meticulous lines across the roof of their house.

“Dad, our house needs to look like it’s about to fall down.”

“Good point,” I said.

I tilted both roof pieces.

“And falling apart,” said Graham.

I chipped off a corner of one of the roof halves.

“Let’s hang some candy canes along the rim of the roof, but they should be all jacked up and about to fall off.”

We did so. Then I drew an icing X over one of the windows and put red candies across the X—like a condemned sign.

Meanwhile, the girls carefully placed candy ornaments throughout their perfectly lined roof.

“We need a scene in front,” Graham said.

I iced the door, and he put a green M&M in the icing as a doorknob.

“Let’s put some messed up trees in the front yard,” Graham said.

“No, even better,” I said. “We’re gonna have two piles. One is a huge pile of coke. All white. The other is a huge pile of weed, all the green trees.”

“Nice,” said Graham.

I put two huge globs of icing down, then poured all the rest of the white sugar crystals in one while Graham piled trees flat into the other.

Next, I made stacked three globs of icing for a snowman. We gave him two arms and a candy cane pipe. Then I laid three globs down, and I made small pools of icing to his sides.

“What’s that?” said Graham.

“Watch,” I said. I dusted the pools with red sugar crystals.

“Ha ha ha, nice,” said Graham. “He’s dead.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The one still standing capped him.”

I put a finer point on our icing bag and wrote Cypress Hill in the front yard and Bloods in the side yard. Then we dusted the writing with red sugar crystals. Trap house!

I made a video explaining the house, but Lauren wouldn’t let me send it.

“Pictures only!” she said. “You can’t bias the judges!”

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, that’s the girls’ house and the pictures they sent to Brayden and Carson.

Obviously, you need to study the fine details of the boys’ house to get the full story. Notice the gingerbread man on the roof and his lines. Notice the piles of substances in the front yard and the snowman murder scene.

“Lame,” said Lucia.

“Call Brayden and get his vote,” I said.

So she did, and she put him on speaker. “Truth time,” Lucia said.

“I like the one with the M&M as the door handle,” he said.

“No way,” she said.

“Seriously. It has a whole story. Look at the dead snowman in the front.”

I broke out laughing.

“Brayden!” Lucia yelled. Then she whirled on Lindsay. “Call Carson!”

“If there’s a tie, it goes to Grant and Katy,” Lauren said.

“Ain’t gonna be a tie,” I said. “Who doesn’t love a good trap house?”

Now Carson was on speaker. “The one with the dead dog or whatever that is out front.”

“What?!?!” Lindsay exclaimed. “That’s a dead snowman! He got blown away by the other.”

“Yeah, that one’s better,” said Carson.

“What’s wrong with the other?” Lindsay said.

“Too much happening on that roof. It’s just too much.”

Graham and I were belly laughing, and Graham yelled, “Suck it!”

But for good measure, I sent pictures of our trap house to Grant who wrote back: Snowman got his own fire, he don’t need security in da club. Lol. An adaptation of a line from Pooh Shiesty’s “Back in Blood.”

The girls were not happy. They each called their boyfriends back to get them to change their votes. They refused. Lauren waited an hour then got on with Carson to try to get him to change his vote.

“I was wondering if you had had a change of heart.”

“Nope,” he said. “That other roof is way too busy.”

That night, Lauren got into bed with me. “I feel like it was biased from the start.”

“Rigged, if you will?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“To be clear, you mean that the judges you girls chose were biased against you. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad you’re taking this so well.”