I was very grateful this holiday season. I had a lot of vacation days and was able to reconnect with myself, my family and friends.

One of the things that was greatly accomplished was a serious "gingerbread-house-making" day, which is made of graham crackers instead.

It all started years back when I was in Elementary School: Grade six. It was in Decememer. I remember walking up to my teacher's desk, Mr. S, and asked him why we didn't have much holiday spirit and it would be nice to make a gingerbread house. The teacher was one of my favorites, he was quite a comedian as I remembered. So, the next day, he made an announcement in the classroom. He had is arms crossed, leaning on his desk and told us to put our pencils down and consider something, he said: "Lena brought an attention about some holiday spirit, she insisted on decorating gingerbread houses..." We had a vote in the classroom and the gingerbread house making has won the crowd. Everyone cheered. A girl in the class turned around, J, smiled and said "Thank you for making this happen".

I haven't always had the time and effort to make these houses around the holidays; however, this year, after a good four hours, I feel accomplished.

I hope next year's will be better than the last.