So you *do* have gingerbread (or cake at least, which is almost the same thing, I guess) in Scotland, at least! Here in Sweden, what we call "pepparkaka" (i.e. gingerbread) is a *big* tradition at Christmas time.
We even have a tradition of making gingerbread houses at Christmastime. My mother used to invest many hours of work every December, making a gingerbread house for us in her family (me, my sister and our father). All my (American) friends and their mothers were mightily impressed by my mother´s skill, and the hard work she carried out, making those beautiful gingerbread houses!
She began by making the gingerbread herself, from scratch. If I recall correctly, she used flour, butter, sugar syrup and spices. She would cut the gingerbread dough into the shapes of the walls and the roof of the gingerbread house (she had to be careful when cutting the square holes which were supposed to be windows), bake them so that they became hard (and brittle, so she had to be careful that she did not break them and spoil all that work!). Then she "glued" the gingerbread walls and roof (and the teeny-weeny gingerbread chimney!) together with molten sugar (which was a little bit dangerous, since the molten sugar could cause very nasty burns - so she always kept my sister and me out of the kitchen when she was doing that part of the work of building the gingerbread house). Finally, my mother would decorate the gingerbread house, after it was assembled, with icing, which was coloured with food colouring (red, green and white) and she would make a little puff of smoke coming out of the tiny chimney with some soft, white cotton. And, of course, there were traditional small figurines of festive dwarves and elves made out of painted wood, which we had taken with us to America from Sweden. It was a charming tradition in our house.
My sister and I were always happy to "help" our mother make the gingerbread house a few weeks before Christmas. But of course, being kids, we mostly just devoured some of that delicious gingerbread dough! Our mother had to prevent us from eating too much, with a stomach ache as a possible consequence! After Christmas was over, we did *not* eat the gingerbread house, because it had been standing in the air for several weeks, so it was rather stale and not edible. We fed it to the birds who were outside in the cold instead, and they were very grateful! | 
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