Tag Archives: gingerbread house

Gingerbread House Decorating Alert!

If you need a sign that the holiday season is upon us, here’s one word: gingerbread.

The Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce has developed “what promises to be a fun, annual, holiday event!” It’s a “gingerbread decorating house contest.” (Or, more grammatically, a gingerbread house decorating contest.)

Visit the Chamber office (215 Main Street) Monday or Tuesday (November 19-20). You’ll be given a name and location of your “business host.”

You’ll have a week to decorate the house. (This being Thanksgiving week, it’s either a terrible time, or a way to keep kids busily occupied.)

Completed houses should be delivered to “the designated business/merchant” by Sunday, November 25. There will be a jar for votes — with ballots cast by pennies.

Then, you collect your house by Monday, December 10. You bring it to the Westport Library for the Chamber’s Holiday House party on Thursday, December 13 (4:30 to 6 p.m.). One winner from each of 3 categories — Youth/Family, Adult and Professional — will be announced.

A portion of the funds raised benefit Staples Tuition Grants and Toys for Tots. (Did I mention there are entry fees? $75 for Professional category; $50 for Adult; $25 for Youth/Family.)

Sounds complicated, I know.

But win or lose, you support Westport business and 2 great organizations.

Plus, win or lose, you’ll end up with a wonderful doorstop.

The Dude’s Christmas

The Dude Abides was up early this Christmas morning.  He reports:

Celebrating any holiday with the Philpott clan of Westport is like attending the circus.  Three things go on at the same time, and you need to sit on the edge of your seat to catch the next act.

The Philpott brothers — Brian, Ted and Rob — are infamous in Westport for their partying escapades.  One Christmas Eve, they dared each other to run naked through CVS.  It was caught on camera.  No charges were filed.

Now the statute of limitations has run out.  Like many of us, they have grown older and wiser.  Jobs.  Marriages.  Mortgages.  Kids.  Some call it “responsibility.”

The Philpotts — now flying solo, with both parents in absentia — have developed new traditions.  One is a smash-mouth, gut-wrenching, fight-to-the-finish… gingerbread house competition.

A Philpott gingerbread creation.

That’s right.  The former football stars have turned to the culinary arts to find a different way to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Everyone at their late-night party is divided into 2 groups.  They have an hour to build a gingerbread house.

There is only 1 rule:  Everything that goes on the house must be edible.

Once completed, both houses are placed on Facebook.  The world decides the winner.

This year, a few structural mishaps with one house (the “Tijuana Brothel”) enabled the two older Philpott brothers — Brian and Ted — to prevail.

We can only imagine what the Dude has up his sleeve for New Year’s Eve!