The Ultra-Decked Halls

Several family members and I went to see the Gingerbread Houses at Le Parker Meridien Hotel this year for their second showing. Last year more bakeries were represented and overall, the quality was a tad higher. Picky, picky. This year’s Occupy the North Pole creation was wonderful as the figures above show and I also liked  “My Type” although,

My Type

as my daughter observed, it’s not gingerbread but fondant and she felt it shouldn’t count.  Guess Le PM thought otherwise.

However, this year’s best were terrific and we are each hoping that ours is the winning ticket to the Le PM in Palm Springs. We left exclaiming, “when mine is the selected number, I’ll send you a postcard.”

Our next stop was at the Bergdorf Goodman windows that I’d already seen but could happily spend several more hours viewing. One window is almost entirely crafted in wood; one in paper;

Paper zebra at Berdoft Goodman

one in ceramic tile and one (my personal fave) in fabric including knitted horns on a mountain goat and a passementerie sheep. (Query to readers: is this what one calls lots of different crafts in one piece? If not, how would you describe a figure with fringe, beading, crochet and other techniques? What exactly is passementerie?)  As the woman I went with on visit #1 said, ” They must start working on these the minute they take the old ones down.” Yes, they must and the job must keep a lot of elves busy.

Fabric or made-from-fabric animals at Bergorf's

To dazzle the  member of our party just about to turn twelve, (and who hates bling in any form), we crossed 57th Street to check out Tiffany’s. The concept of making each window as the prism of a diamond is, well, brilliant. The scenes inside are enchanting–some contain a piece of  jewelery; one has fanciful animals traveling on a Central Park bridge and another shows Santa’s sleigh with a deliberately large pair of reindeer legs and hooves.

Disappearing Prancer (or Comet, or Cupid)

Over the non-blinger’s  objections, we went inside where there appeared to be a lot of looking and a little shopping as contrasted with yesteryear when wedding presents from the Big T were de regeur as was a charge account at the store which led to an account at all the other department stores of the city.  (That was also the era of the store charge card which has been replaced by everyperson’s Visa, MasterCard or AmEx.)

From there it was a hop home via the Madison Avenue bus to the next meal. Although I didn’t serve gingerbread, a friend did recently and it was delicious. Here’s how to do it:

Old Fashioned Gingerbread