Christmas is a season for families—but more specifically, for kids. This is why it almost came as a no-brainer for the country’s most multi-faceted integrated resort, Newport World Resorts, to make the decision to build a true-to-life Gingerbread House in one of its entrances when it took on the theme “The World of Christmas” for this year, especially targeting the Filipino family.  Putting up the fully edible Gingerbread House took months of conceptualization and days of “construction,” not just by engineers but by some of the hospitality hub’s best pastry chefs.  Once completed, the sugary, sweet brown structure immediately elicited compliments from visitors and guests who marveled at how detailed and realistic it was.

Among the first visitors of the fairytale-like bungalow are respected multi-media personality and best-life advocate Korina Sanchez-Roxas, who came with her twins, the much-loved, heavily followed online supertypes, Pepe and Pilar, in a rare public appearance.  The Thrillmaker was fortunate enough to be given the task of welcoming the kids and giving them a tour of the gingerbread house.

“I’m tired,” said a sleepy-looking Pepe.  “We just came from school,” he added as he snuggled close to his twin sister while entering the house together with their yayas.  “Pagod pa po, Sir,” one of the yayas told me.  Pilar looked shy and tried not to make eye contact with the people around.  No, the kids showed no annoyance to the cameras that started snapping the moment they stepped into the property.  They’re used to the camera...and the attention!  However, it was obvious that both of them were tired and probably wanted to nap.  Used to dealing with kids who are not in the best of moods (I have a son, now 15 years old, who used to show shifty moods as a kid), I knew I had to step in lest the visit might turn out to be less enjoyable for the kids.  Using my best “Batibot” voice, I entered the house and introduced myself to Pepe and Pilar.

“Hi, Pepe and Pilar! I’m your Tito Joee! I’m your mom’s good friend.  Thank you for coming to our house, that’s made of candy and all sorts of sweet stuff.  Let me take you around the house,” was my opening greeting.

Pilar warmed up to me right away.  She gave me a smile and then headed out of the house with me. Pepe followed his sister and shared their “limitations and restrictions” right away.

“We can’t eat a lot of candies and chocolates.  It’s bad for us,” he declared.  Pilar quickly clarified what his brother said: “But we can have one candy every day.”

Seeing that the kids had finally opened up to the idea of doing the tour with me, I started telling them stories about how the house was built.  I even shared the story of Hansel and Gretel, to which they listened intently. At that point, I asked our chefs to give them some materials so they could start decorating the house on their own. This turned out to be the most enjoyable part for the kids as they gamely plastered different cookies molded as Christmas symbols to the house's walls, using cake icing as their paste.  It was also at this point when the kids started facing and posing for the cameras and the crowd that started building up around the house.  Korina could only watch in amazement how her kids enjoyed their time together in the Gingerbread house.

For her socials, Korina started taking videos of Pepe and Pilar as the three of them played in the house’s faux garden.

When it was finally time to go, I handed the kids their gift baskets containing some of the goodies they enjoyed in the house that afternoon.

Pilar gave photographers her best smile as she carried her basketful of goodies.  Pepe, on the other hand, said: “This is too heavy.  I have tired arms,” which made some of us laugh.  Of course, my team members just took the basket from him and handed it to his yaya.

While the experience obviously turned out to be fun for our special guests that afternoon, I, myself, enjoyed the time that I got to spend with these wonderful kids. They were both so lovable that, this early, I am predicting that both of them will be “big stars” in their own right if they still aren’t already.