Sweet traditions

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: building Christmas memories.

Gingerbread house decorating is a fun tradition for many families. But for others it’s downright serious.

MAST: WORLD’s Mary Muncy caught up with a few gingerbread competitors trying to keep things in perspective when victory can be so sweet.

FAMILY: Sprinkle this in the frosting, like over the snow. It'll be like, it's sparkling snow.

MARY MUNCY: The Noffsinger family is huddled around their kitchen table very carefully assembling a gingerbread gym.

JONATHAN NOFFINGER: I'm Jonathan, and I'm 13.

RENEE: I'm Renee and I'm way old.

AIRY: I'm Airy, and I'm nine years old, and Renee is 39.

They entered the annual gingerbread house competition in South Bend, Indiana. They’ve been working on their creation for three days and this is the last night they’ll have time to work on it before next week’s competition.

RENEE: We had our little blue prints that we worked from. We wrote all the stuff we needed to buy, and then we kind of drew out what we wanted to do.

They’re combining a couple of store-bought kits and candy to make a gingerbread Planet Fitness. So far, they have a wafer, pretzel, and Life Saver bench press, a pretzel and marshmallow weight rack, and a wafer treadmill is in the works. But it’s all a dynamic process.

JONATHAN: So the Grinch is gonna be sitting back here, and the dog can be next to him, like, it's, no, he's like a homeless man behind the gym. You know, like living there.

RENEE: This is morphing into something entirely different.

JONATHAN: This is my best idea yet.

Renee grew up in South Bend and wanted to join the competition a few years before her kids were born. At that point, professional bakers were competing alongside community members. By the time Renee and Jonathan entered their first gingerbread house eight years ago, the competition had dwindled some and now professionals don’t compete anymore. But it’s still a big part of the Noffsingers’ family traditions.

MUNCY: Why you guys keep doing it every year?

AIRY: Because it's fun.

MUNCY: Yeah.

JONATHAN: I enjoy the experience of just working together and eating a ton of candy.

The competition has been in several different locations and gone through a few different phases over its 15 years.

Kylie Carter works for Downtown South Bend and has been helping with the competition and other downtown events for the past ten years.

CARTER: I think it kind of came out of the whole, like, decades ago, when everybody moved to the suburbs and downtown's kind of started to get, you know, to deteriorate.

The city’s population has been on a net decline since the 60s, but this year saw an increase from last year.

CARTER: We're on the up and up again. So that's exciting.

Carter says there are a lot of reasons for the city’s growth, but she likes to think her events could be part of it—pulling people together who would otherwise never meet. People like Deb Neumann.

She’s working on a gingerbread creation too. But she has a slightly different timeline and motivation than the Noffsingers.

DEB NEUMANN: Now I've got one week left, so it's usually about a three week project.

MUNCY: And what am I looking at?

NEUMANN: So this is like 14 batches of gingerbread. I have two more in the fridge that I will be using.

Neumann is crafty and pretty competitive. She’s won the nonprofessional adult category and the popular vote for the past two years. She thinks this might be her last year.

NEUMANN: I don't know, I feel like, maybe let someone else have a chance.

The rules say everything has to be edible and Neumann says the judges tend to like entries that aren’t houses. Last year, she made the Great Barrier Reef. That included dying lasagna noodles green and dehydrating them.

NEUMANN: I'm doing, kind of an Arctic theme this year. So there'll be some water, some cliffs, there'll be an igloo, and lots of Arctic animals, and then also some penguins, because I like penguins, and I know they're not Arctic, but I'm gonna add them in.

Deb Newman’s Arctic creation Photo by Mary Muncy

It’s a process of trial and error and sometimes failure and rebuilding. Last year, her gingerbread treehouse creation collapsed on her way to drop it off.

This year, she thinks everything is secure enough that there won’t be a problem, but the Noffsingers are not so sure about theirs.

AUDIO: [TRANSPORTING GINGERBREAD GYM]

On drop-off day, Renee puts the gingerbread gym into a box, sets it on Jonathan’s lap, and they’re off. They avoid a few potholes.

JONATHAN: Oh, very scary. Oh no, up ahead is worse.

After about 15 minutes, they get there and start transitioning from the car to the table where it will be judged. A few seconds later …

RENEE: We made it.

No major damage.

Neumann drops hers off the same day. Then, a week later.

CARTER: Welcome to the 2024 Gingerbread Village Competition award ceremony.

Neumann can’t make it to the awards ceremony, but the Noffsingers listen as event coordinator Kylie Carter announces the winners in each category.

CARTER: I think we had about 600 people come through in the past week to vote for your creations.

Neumann wins the nonprofessional adult category and the popular vote again.

CARTER: And then first place in the nonprofessional family or group category is the Noffsinger family. [Applause]

Carter sets the ribbon between Airy and Jonathan and they scramble for it.

AIRY: I want it.

Renee (left), Jonathan (right), and Airy Noffsinger Photo by Mary Muncy

And then they go take a picture with their winning creation, Jonathan points to a gingerbread gym goer with glitter overalls and a wonky eye.

JONATHAN: My gingerbread man did that. It's all mine.

The Noffsingers and Neumanns come downtown for events about once a month, but this is one of the only ones they participate in.

Renee Noffsinger says it’s nice to win, but even if they don’t, this event puts her in the holiday spirit and she knows if her family doesn’t participate, the competition just gets smaller.

RENEE: I know what it used to look like and sort of what's happened to it over time. So I feel like, okay, well, if I keep doing it, then maybe it'll inspire somebody else to take part in it, which is what I hope, you know?

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in South Bend, Indiana.

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