Gingerbread Decoration Day!

December 10th means that Christmas is creeping closer and closer, and it’s getting to be time to prepare for this holiday associated with so many traditions. One of those traditions is the baking of gingerbread. What child hasn’t dreamed of baking, building and decorating an entire gingerbread house, that could then be inhabited by a colorful little gingerbread family?

The History of Gingerbread Decorating Day

Gingerbread is though to have been brought to Europe by an Armenian monk named Gregory of Nicopolis in the 10th century who had brought the necessary spices back from the Middle East, and then taught the art of gingerbread making, what with the spices and the molasses, to French Christians until his death.
The 13th century also saw gingerbread make its debut in the city of Toruń in Poland, where the honey supplied by the local villages made the cookies especially delicious. To this day Pierniki Toruńskie, as they are known in Poland, are an icon of Poland’s national cuisine. From the 17th century onwards, gingerbread was sold in monasteries and pharmacies in England, where it was thought to have medicinal properties, and gingerbread became the symbol of the town of Market Drayton, which was particularly known for it. In 1875, the gingerbread man was first introduced to holiday traditions through a fairytale published in St. Nicholas magazine, where he was depicted as a holiday treat that was eventually eaten by a hungry fox.