It's Gingerbread Day

1. Here in the United States, we have a number of fun food holidays which generally coincide with the seasons. National Crème-Filled Chocolates Day, for example, takes place on Feb. 14, strawberry, blueberry and apple holidays coincide with harvest months, and so on. With the holidays now upon us, today we celebrate Gingerbread Day. Gingerbread, which dates back to the year 992, can be prepared in a variety of ways. For your Thanksgiving Day feast, try out one of these tasty recipes:

• Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle 
• The Food Network’s Old Fashioned Gingerbread Recipe  
• Martha Stewart Gingerbread Cheesecake (and others)
• Upside-Down Pear Gingerbread Cake

2. Christmas, naturally, is another great gingerbread time of year. If you’re skilled in the art of gingerbread house making, there are some contests taking place nearby, as well as a National Gingerbread House Contest in North Carolina. For the scoop, click out these links for the Ellington Gingerbread House Contest, a  and . Information about the national contest can be found online on Facebook and on the Grove Park Inn site. If you know of others taking place in the area, let us know!

3. Here are some other festive gingerbread links:

• If you love the scent of gingerbread, Yankee Scents offers gingerbread potpourri. Also on the site, there’s a “mix-your-own” section, where you can select your own ingredients and scent, and the company will make it for you.
• Ten Amazing Gingerbread Creations, including a gingerbread laptop, Empire State Building and Star Wars characters, can be found here.
• At Gingerbread Fun you’ll find decorating ideas, crafts, gingerbread houses, gingerbread people and much more.

4. On this day in histor, 1877, Thomas Edison announced his invention of a way to record and play sound. The deviced used to do this became known as the phonograph.

5. There's an expected high of 48ºF today, with a slight chance of rain, and a low of 29ºF, according to AOL Weather.