Solon bakery’s Gingerbread House Extravaganza spreads holiday cheer for patients at University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital

For years, baker Cheryl Maloney knew she was sitting on a good recipe.

She’s been helping make her family’s gingerbread house recipe, in one way or another, since she was a toddler at her grandmother’s house in suburban Chicago. Later, her aunt became the host of the family tradition, and as Maloney started to raise her son, Will, the annual feat moved to their home.

Over the years, the owner of The Eat Shop in Solon and an upcoming Marion location has sharpened her architectural profile. She’s built a gingerbread house in a midcentury style, as a replica of her bakery, and as a Barbie dream house.

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And when they moved from Illinois to Solon several years ago, their larger home meant all the more room for merriment. Over recent years, the family tradition that was first opened to close friends has grown into an event with about 40 neighborhood and community children.

No matter the age, the experience manages to captivate them in an era when very few simple things can.

“They focus on it. There’s no (electronic) devices and they’re all equally excited to be doing it,” Maloney said. “We set it up in a way that’s magical. It really is like an experience for them.”

But it wasn’t until three years ago that she decided to make gingerbread houses in a much bigger batch than usual.

A new tradition

In 2022, her bakery started a new tradition: baking and assembling 100 quality gingerbread house kits for The John J. Sokol Gingerbread House Extravaganza. The annual holiday event, now in its third year, distributes gingerbread house kits to children at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

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But children facing daunting health challenges during the holidays don’t have to make it by themselves. On their hospital room’s TV screens, they can take pointers and follow along as others their age assemble the kits live.

As pediatric patients and their families strive for a sense of normalcy during the holidays, it’s one more way to help make it feel like the most wonderful time of year, despite the demands of their treatment regimens.

The event’s demonstrations, modified to better serve patient needs, allows kids whose immune systems are vulnerable to get in on the fun and see how it’s done in a socially distanced way.

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“One of our goals is to keep the environment as normal as we can for kids and families when they are in the hospital,” said Racheal Niensteadt, Child Life Specialist at the hospital. “Especially during the holidays, we plan many different fun activities that brighten their days, and it is also something for them to look forward to.”

This one, she said, is different from the others.

Jessica Weber and her daughter, Reese, would be inclined to agree.

The two experienced the Gingerbread House Extravaganza in its first year. Reese, then 7, was receiving weekly steroid IV infusions for a rare form of systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which affected her kidney, liver and lungs.

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“The kids (at the hospital) go through so much. They have one little surprise, and it makes a big difference to them,” Jessie Weber said. “They’re going to get poked, and it’s a painful, not so fun day. When they’re greeted with something fun like that, it helps boost their spirits.”

Through years of treatment, their family learned how to value the little things — especially the joys that can be embraced through sedentary activities.

As the holiday season rolled around last year, Reese was at another children’s hospital in Ohio to undergo a bone-marrow transplant. She remembered the gingerbread house kit that brought tidings of comfort and joy the year before.

Jessie asked Maloney how she could purchase one, but Maloney said she couldn’t sell them one — she could only send it free of charge, with a generous helping of candy for construction and sampling purposes.

“She went above and beyond for a kid she never met,” Jessie said. “That’s really cool.”

Keeping her father’s spirit alive

The annual event brings a new facet to a tradition Maloney’s father instilled in her.

John J. Sokol, the embodiment of holiday cheer, started playing Christmas music on Nov. 1 every year. He kept multiple traditions alive and advised the family to get holiday affairs in order well in advance, because “Christmas is the same day every year.”

In November 2019, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He died four months later at age 70.

Maloney wanted a way to remember him. The Gingerbread House Extravaganza married both of their loves — baking and Christmas.

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“Nothing made him happier than watching kids in Christmas spirit,” she said. “He was maybe the most generous person I’ve ever met.”

But what’s more was Sokol’s cognizance of the power of holiday traditions. He wasn’t obsessed with gingerbread houses, gift giving or traditions for the sake of continuity. They were simply the tools that brought everyone together.

As a 30-year maintenance man for the Ridgeland Public School District in suburban Chicago, Sokol’s family may not have had much money. But his daughter doesn’t recall feeling deprived — she remembers wanting for nothing.

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In an era before mass produced, commercialized kits, their gingerbread houses, made from scratch, harnessed a magic no real estate could conjure. For a blue-collar family, this property was an affordable investment, and memories were the currency of its dividends.

When his kids lived at home, Sokol would supervise the building. Later in life, he would take clippings from Williams Sonoma catalogs and track the latest in gingerbread building advances.

“I remember when Nerds Ropes first came out. He thought that was amazing, because you could line them on the top of the gingerbread house,” Maloney said.

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Today, she still gets giddy about Christmas alongside her family’s many other traditions.

But for children spending the holidays without the creature comforts of home, she hopes the new tradition alleviates one symptom — the one anyone can see on their faces.

“I can’t imagine anything worse than being in the hospital on Christmas,” she said. “If I can make one kid in the hospital smile for just a minute, the whole thing is worth it.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.