Santa’s Gingerbread Village
So, last weekend we decided to make our gingerbread house(s). While not exactly an annual tradition, we have made houses the last couple years and perhaps we are in the process of establishing a tradition. It was my understanding that this was a family activity in which the kids would be actively participating. I was somewhat mistaken as the construction of a gingerbread house is well above the ability of a 4 year old and seemingly beyond the interest level of a 9 year old; so I went about the work mostly on my own.
We don’t actually make the gingerbread, that would just be plain silly, especially when you can purchase wonderful pre-made gingerbread house kits. This years kit actually contained 2 houses – fitting into our plan of, ‘how to involve the 4yr old and the 9yr old without causing a meltdown’. As I mentioned, this really didn’t matter anyway, I just got to build 2 houses. Despite being provided the wrong piece for one of the houses and having icing that was too warm and ended up being too soft, (the building pieces kept sagging because the icing took too long to set), I eventually got both houses up and decorated. And, truth be told, once we got to the decorating part, Melissa was a big help. The saggy icing actually worked out in my favour because where I used it for the windows and the roof, it actually looked like snow and icicles.
Its a good thing that I snapped a few pictures when I did because both houses are already half eaten and I’m not sure they’ll even make it to Christmas.
