GINGERBREAD TRADITION NOTICEABLE IN ITS ABSENCE.

Byline: Kathleen Vallee Stein

I was sick this year.

I was so sick that I let go of a 25-year tradition, with the flick of an eye. I let it go. I was so sick that I went to the emergency room at 5:30 in the morning, and they gave me an antibiotic by IV, a breathing treatment and a chest X-ray.

The tradition I let go of dated back to my childhood. When I was in elementary school my uncle sent a gingerbread house to my family. The house arrived, two weeks before Christmas, to a household with five children. Five hungry children. My mother forbid us to eat the lovely confection until Christmas.

We dutifully waited until Christmas morning. Alas, the gingerbread was like a rock. We did our best and tore into the hapless house with all our might. We simply could not bite into the stale gingerbread. It was dry, hard and unforgiving. Just as we were to our terrible mother who made us wait.

Perhaps out of guilt, Mom began a tradition of making cookie houses the very next year. We started out slow, making the houses out of sugar cookies. Wrong. It had to be gingerbread. Next was figuring out the ``glue`` that held the house together. It wasn't butter frosting, but had to be made with egg whites and confectioner's sugar. We worked it out, together.

After I left home and started a family, I kept the cookie house tradition going through blizzards, a divorce, a breakup with a boyfriend, reconciliation with said boyfriend, remarriage and conversion to Judaism.

After the divorce, I made the houses and sold them to my friends to raise money to buy Christmas presents for my two young children. I will always be grateful to my wonderful friends for helping me in my hour of need. That was the last year I sold the gingerbread houses.

My boyfriend and I worked it out and married the next year. I gratefully converted to his religion, Judaism, but kept my childhood tradition of making gingerbread houses. The gingerbread was a part of me that had persevered, triumphed and kept on keeping-on. Though it wasn't part of his tradition, he understood.

Every year I selected my favorite people and delighted them with my delicious gingerbread houses, with the admonition that they eat it right away, while it was fresh. Most of them had never received such a gift. I took pride in my ability to surprise and delight them. Not this year. I was too sick.

Part of me was sad that I could pass off a 25-year tradition with a wink of an eye. I blamed it on my impending 50th birthday and my bronchitis. Was I really that sick? I supposed I was.

Yesterday, I went to the grocery store to buy some cough drops and walked past a candy display. I spotted the tiny candy bits that I have used to make ``shutters'' for my gingerbread houses. I stopped and picked up the bag and felt a sadness I could not contain. For the first time in a quarter of a century, half my life, I had not persevered.

No matter one's faith or creed, December is a time for traditions. My personal tradition, held through thick and thin, was passed over this year. The sadness I felt as I held the small bag of candy will be lifted next year as I roll out the dough for a cookie house I anticipate with love and delight. The pain of the past year will roll into the dough and will bake out of sight.

I will continue my 26-year tradition, with a moment of thought for my missed year; just one, a tiny space in time. I will give thanks for that moment when I learned how precious a tradition can be, and will anticipate with joy my health, my tradition and the gift of giving.