Obsession spirals out of control: this woman wants to live in a gingerbread house.
Tamera’s greatest wish sounds like something straight out of a fairytale. She wants to live in a gingerbread house.
Christmas is a holiday loved by many. People especially love the combination of the atmosphere, the music, the Christmas tree, the decorations and being together with family. Tamera Holland is obsessed with one very specific aspect of the annual Christmas celebrations. Gingerbread. Her whole life is centered around this curious obsession.
Then, her daughter tells her that she has a big surprise in store for her mother…
The Gingerbread Lady
Tamera Holland from Altevista, Virginia, is totally obsessed with gingerbread. You’d be wrong if you thought that meant she just a lot of the cookies. Everything in the Gingerbread Lady’s life revolves around it. You are probably familiar with the gingerbread men that can be found in the shop windows and commercials around Christmas time all over the world. Or do you remember the gingerbread house from the well-known fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel?
Whereas the smell of gingerbread is present in many kitchens around Christmas time, Tamera’s love for it doesn’t stop once the holidays are over. Her obsession keeps her busy all year round. Even in the middle of summer, when everybody’s wearing their swimming suits, Tamera’s oven is working overtime.
In addition to bowls full of gingerbread cookies, Tamera also has a huge collection of inedible gingerbread men, houses and other memorabilia. There is only one important object missing from her collection…
Gingerbread
Gingerbread is a type of cookie that many people eat, especially during the winter. The characteristic taste stems from the addition of ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and honey. The biscuit type comes in many shapes and sizes, from an airy cake-like pastry to snappy cookies.
The type of biscuit is mainly known for the shapes into which it is baked. It is tradition for many families to bake gingerbread men and then decorate them with icing. You will also find the cookies in the shapes of Christmas trees, stars and snowflakes. The largest gingerbread man ever made weighed 651 kilograms. This enormous cookie was baked by employees of an IKEA store in Oslo, Norway in 2009.
It wouldn’t surprise us if Tamera‘s entire gingerbread collection weighs just as much…
A house full of gingerbread
The Gingerbread Lady’s friends and family know that they can’t make her happy with flowers, chocolate or the other usual presents. It doesn’t matter what you give her as long as it has something to do with gingerbread. This has led to a collection of gingerbread-related items that now fill up her entire house.
By 2013, five years after Tamera had started her gingerbread collection, she had collected no fewer than 800 different items related to gingerbread. Tamera estimated her collection at a value of approximately 3000 euros. But that is what it was worth in financial terms. The emotional value of this collection was many times higher. Tamera’s whole life revolves around gingerbread. Every moment not spent on other things, she is busy expanding her collection.
Curious how this ever started? Continue reading quickly.
How the obsession started
Although Tamera has fond memories of baking gingerbread men with her daughter when she was little, it turned into an obsession only five years ago. Before that, Tamera had been a normal mother and wife, with a normal job and normal hobbies. Everything changed when Miss Ginger entered her life.
She was walking downtown when she passed an antique store that was holding a clearance sale. Tamera was a real bargain hunter and couldn’t pass up this opportunity. But when she walked into the store, the $1 box didn’t catch her eye…
There she stood. The person who would turn her whole life upside down.
On sale
In the middle of the store stood a huge gingerbread man. Or actually: gingerbread lady. The doll smiled at Tamera and it was love at first sight. There was only one problem… This oversized Christmas ornament cost more than just a few bucks… According to the price tag, Tamera would have to pay a whopping $45 to take Miss Ginger home.
Tamera raced home, where her husband was amazed to hear the enthusiastic speech about a giant gingerbread cookie. “$45!? Are you crazy? he uttered in disbelief. “Forty five dollars for a gingerbread lady?”. But his wife had her sights set on Miss Ginger and pulled out all the stops to convince him. Finally, he gave in and Tamera went back to the store in the best of moods.
Miss Ginger became part of the family. Where this would lead, Tamera’s husband never could have predicted.
Miss Ginger
The doll soon became an important part of Tamera’s life. She took Miss Ginger everywhere. ‘At night the doll slept in between the married couple, during the day she was always within Tamera’s reach. Miss Ginger became her rock. And this was just the beginning of her obsession…
“The love I feel for her is indescribable.” Tamera explains. “Even if they offered me $1 million, I wouldn’t sell her. She is part of the family and just as important as my husband or daughter.” That is quite a statement…
What would Tamera‘s daughter think about her mother’s obsession?
Unconditional support and love
Tamera ‘s daughter Tiffany supports her mother unconditionally. “Mom‘s passion for gingerbread is a good thing!”, she says in defense of Tamera’s interesting obsession, “I find it sweet, innocent and not at all scary or creepy”. Tiffany even goes a step further and helps her mother to expand her collection.
Tamera’s entire house is filled with the 800 gingerbread-related items that she has collected. There is a part of the collection that hangs on the wall, that has a lot of emotional value for Tamera. The clock hanging there is a present from her daughter. Tiffany fully supports her mother’s hobby.
Tamera has no idea what surprise Tiffany has in store for her…
300 cookies
Tiffany is actually very happy with her mother’s obsession. For her it means that she is never short of cookies. Although Tamera bakes gingerbread men all year round, her oven runs overtime around Christmas time. Every year around the holidays, Tamera bakes around 300 gingerbread men! Many of these she gives out to friends and family
Each gingerbread man is unique, according to Tamera. They are all special. That’s why she keeps some of the cookies she bakes every year. These chosen ones become part of Tamera’s permanent gingerbread family. She keeps them in her freezer. The oldest brothers of the frozen family were baked in 2009.
Tiffany is so obsessed with ginger and gingerbread that she enjoys the spice in more ways than just one…
Never enough ginger
Tamera started smoking at a young age. Until recently, she lit several tobacco cigarettes every day, but lately she has shed this habit in a very peculiar way. She has replaced the tobacco in her cigarettes with ginger. After Tamera read somewhere on the internet that the spice can be smoked after drying it, it didn’t take long for her to incorporate her obsession into her daily smoke break too.
This probably won’t be the last way Tamera introduces ginger into her life. She’s also thinking about adding it to her daily warm bath, replacing the lavender oil she normally adds. She wonders if it has a similar calming effect. Ginger aromatherapy is next on her list.
In addition to these little plans, Tamera has one more big dream that she hopes will come true…
Tamera ‘s fairytale dream
Although ginger is already part of almost everything in her life, Tamera still has one big dream. She hopes that one day it will be fulfilled. Her whole house is already filled to the brim with gingerbread, but that’s just the interior. Among these items you will find several gingerbread houses. What if…
Tamera ‘s big dream is to live in a house made of gingerbread. And it isn’t just a dream. No, Tamera is dead serious and very motivated to make this dream a reality. Over the past 3 years, the obsessed woman saved $4000 to turn her house into a life-size gingerbread house.
She hires a painter to turn the plan into reality.
The plan
The painter, Mike, comes to visit Tamera and is completely stunned by what he finds in her house. He sees gingerbread everywhere he looks and the sweet smell fills him with nausea. He is quick to suggest discussing the plan outside so Tamera can tell him just how she wants the job done.
“I want you to paint my house” Tamera tells the painter. Mike walks around the house. That should work. He asks his customer exactly how she wants it. “I want you to paint it brown. A kind of golden brown, like honey”, Tamera explains. She shows him a gingerbread house as an example.“I want it to look very appetizing. To eat!”
Mike looks at the gingerbread house in amazement. He had never had to do a job like this before…
What does Mike think?
This is unlike any other job Mike has seen in his 22 years as a painter. But that’s what makes it fun! He thinks it is a very unique job and is eager to get started. He writes down the details and arranges a date and time with Tamera.
Back at the office, he tells his colleagues what had happened. At first they don’t believe him. It is a very special request indeed. Living in a gingerbread house? They had only heard of that before from the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel. Once they realized it was a serious job, they got just as excited as Mike was.
They went out of their way to make Tamera’s dream come true! But first they had to solve an important problem…
Golden brown? Honey brown? Gingerbread brown.
Finding the right color turned out to be quite a challenge. What color is a gingerbread house? How long has the pastry been in the oven? Should the house be slightly burnt? The team played around with these questions and spent a lot of time mixing the paint so that the house would get the perfect color.
In the end, they decided to show Tamera several samples and let her choose. The woman was very happy that the job was taken so seriously and felt very involved. She had every faith in this project! After choosing the right color, the painters could get started.
Tamera had no idea that her daughter had prepared an even bigger surprise for her…
The job
The painters arrived at the house early in the morning. At this point, the house still looked pretty ordinary. White walls, red door and frames. They were eager to get the job done and make Tamera’s dream a reality. They started their work with enthusiasm.
Painting the entire house turned out to be a time-consuming job. Fortunately, Tamera had found shelter at her daughter Tiffany’s, for the painters had been working on it for several days. The painters had a gingerbread house within reach. Both to enjoy as a snack and to use for reference. It really started to look like it!
Tamera couldn’t wait to see the result. What she would eventually discover would surpass her greatest dreams.