Tables of dozens of gingerbread houses in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Gingerbread House Auction are available for public viewing Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at Abe and Jake's Landing.

For the better part of a decade, I have been fighting a losing battle that a good lean-to makes every home better.

You know what I’m talking about — a shed for storing lawn mowers, weed whackers, spare parts for the chocolate fountain and other home necessities. Where I grew up, you tack a lean-to onto the side of your house, and when that one fills up, you tack another one on. Back home there are two-bedroom houses that stretch for a quarter of a mile.

Even though I have shown those fine examples, I’ve never been successful in getting the necessary approvals to build a lean-to of my own.

Then, gingerbread came into my life.

For reasons not entirely clear to me — especially as I now try to sandblast the royal icing off my glasses — I’ve long wanted to build a gingerbread house for the annual Big Brothers Big Sisters Gingerbread House Auction.

Then, I got to thinking: If you are going to do this, you might as well shoot for the stars. Yes, a Christmas lean-to.

More than 50 gingerbread houses — and one lean-to — have been on display at Abe & Jake’s Landing this weekend. Perhaps you’ve already been to see them. A fundraising gala was on Friday, and a public viewing was on Saturday. But if you haven’t yet seen the creations, a public viewing continues today from noon to 4 p.m. at Abe & Jake’s Landing at Sixth and New Hampshire streets along the Kansas River.

“It is a really unique fundraiser,” said Mia Gonzalez, development associate for the local Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. “It is a holiday tradition that a lot of people across the spectrum share. If you don’t make gingerbread houses, you like to look at them.”

• • •

As readers of this column and emergency room nurses can attest, I’m quite the handyman. So, building a gingerbread house should be no problem.

Quite obviously, you start the process by buying a new table saw and a few hundred dollars worth of other tools. Actually, my wife “suggested” I start by finding a recipe for gingerbread. I’ll confess, I thought gingerbread was just another name for graham crackers. I’ve never built a gingerbread house in my life, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. (The kids division gets to use graham crackers, but the adults use the real deal.)

But no problem. Mr. Google helped me find a recipe for gingerbread. It seemed simple enough: some butter, some eggs, some brown sugar, some flour, some ginger, some cinnamon, some cloves, some baking soda, some salt and some molasses, but as the recipe emphatically states, “not blackstrap.” That was close. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally used blackstrap in my life.

So, I ask my wife where we keep all this stuff.

So, I return from the grocery store. As I combine those ingredients, I realize I have not yet called a gingerbread making expert. I had intended to do so, but failed on that front. If I had, I would have asked the expert three things: (1) What the @#$%&! is blackstrap? (2) How do you get molasses off your glasses? and (3) How important is the baking soda?

Yes, after about an hour of mixing and combining, shortly after I put the mixer away and my rolled dough in the refrigerator, I remembered I had forgotten to put in the baking soda. I decided to take the dough out and sprinkle the baking soda on top of it.

I asked my wife — who actually is a very good baker — “is this going to work?”

I don’t think she knew what I was asking about, but she had no trouble answering nonetheless.

“Probably not.”

• • •

Figuring out if this can work actually is a big challenge with Big Brothers Big Sisters as well. For those of you not familiar with Big Brothers Big Sisters, it is a nonprofit organization that pairs children ages 5 to 17 with adult mentors. The concept is simple: Responsible adults spend some time with kids, and good things happen.

The program is open to any child, but 82 percent of the children in the local program come from single-family homes, and 80 percent live at or below the poverty level.

“But those are the kids we really want to serve because we want to break that cycle of poverty,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez can cite a lot of statistics about how the program does help in breaking that cycle, but first adults must decide that it can work with their schedules. Adults saying they don’t have enough time to be part of the program is the biggest challenge the organization faces. It is particularly an issue they hear from men. The organization serves more than 250 kids in Douglas County, but has a waiting list of more than 100 kids who are looking for an adult.

“When people are thinking of signing up, the biggest hurdle is always the time commitment,” Gonzalez said. “But we tell them it is on their time. They get to set the schedule.”

(The organization actually has two types of programs: one where mentors simply meet a child for lunch at school, and another where adult and child get together more often.)

Once an adult does sign up, Gonzalez said, the biggest question often changes.

“We don’t hear about the time anymore,” Gonzalez said. “What we hear about is how their ‘little’ is going through so much right now, and they want to be able to help them more.”

• • •

I’m not sure anything can help me at this point. I’m making royal icing, and you know you have a good recipe when it lists the amount of powdered sugar you will need in pounds.

You also may have a mess, though. My wife is not currently home, which is good because I need some time to figure out how to explain this kitchen scene to her. A Christmas CD is playing, and that gives me an idea. “A White Christmas.” I was just trying to create a white Christmas scene in the kitchen.

I fear I’m as dead as Bing Crosby.

On the bright side, it does not appear my baking soda mishap caused any problem. Sure, the piece of gingerbread I’m using for the back wall of the lean-to broke. But I simply decided to make the lean-to about 25 percent shorter than originally planned. Something similar happened when we were building our house, and it has worked out fine. Our youngest child really has grown to enjoy sleeping in a coat closet.

The rest of the pieces go together pretty well. One of the more enjoyable parts about this has been it is a good reminder of what it’s like to be a kid again. For a good part of a week, I went to bed thinking about candy. I could use round gummy rings for wheels on my tractor. I could use shredded wheat for my bales of hay. I could use Bugles — the scrumptious snack chips — for my trees. (I actually wasn’t planning on trees, but while at the store my daughter and I decided we were hungry for Bugles. In case you are wondering, I think I have made myself sick on trees.)

Lawrence Journal-World managing editor Chad Lawhorn entered his Modern Day Manger gingerbread house in this year's Big Brothers Big Sisters Gingerbread House Auction.

I take my creation into Abe & Jake’s for check-in. The volunteer at the front desk asks me if it is for the kids graham cracker category. It is not. It also is not for the category that will be sold in the live auction. About a dozen of the largest, most elaborate homes get sold as part of a live auction. There are some homes that go for more than $1,000. (The entire event raises more than $40,000.)

“We really try to get bidders up to $1,000 because then they get a bottle of champagne,” said Emily Cope, a gingerbread maker and member of the committee that organizes the auction.

I tell Emily I think they’ll need a slightly different strategy, if they hope to get $1,000 out of my creation: Feed the bidders the champagne first, and it likely will take more than a bottle.

She tells me not to worry. This is her ninth year making a gingerbread house, and “I still cry at least once every time.” But she also usually shrieks in delight at some point, like this year when she found green Twizzlers that she’ll be able to use for vines as part of her garden shed scene.

“Some people were looking at me odd in Walgreens when I started shrieking in the candy aisle,” Emily said.

I bet there will be some people who look oddly at my Christmas lean-to as well. But that’s OK; it may not raise a lot of money in the silent auction portion of the event, but it gave me something valuable nonetheless. It reminded me I have more time than I think.

I’ve had this story on my to-do list for years, but always thought I was too busy. I’m as busy as ever these days, but I did find time to make a gingerbread house. I bet I could find time to do even more. I bet most of us could.

Gonzalez thinks so, too.

“I hear the success stories,” Gonzalez said of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

She hears about kids who were in the program who go to college when there was a time that it looked like they never would. She hears about kids who age out of the program but still stay connected with their adult mentors. They’re in wedding parties, they celebrate birthdays together, and so much more.

“They’ve become a part of the same family, and that is so beautiful,” Gonzalez said. “And that happened because just one person got involved in someone’s life.”

Somebody made time to help a kid. I think we can all agree that is one addition that makes every home better.