Gingerbread houses

Waaaaay back in December we made gingerbread houses. When I was making the pieces, I lost count and cut an extra roof piece instead of a front door, so Jack and I improvised and made a stable, with a star on top and a manger with a baby inside. I'm still not sure how I feel about turning a sacred scene into an edible explosion of sugary color, complete with a little ginger baby Jesus resting his candy head on bubble gum wrappers. I didn't really think that one through.


Rose and Ellen went with a more traditional design, using all the dumdums available for trees, lampposts, and tasting. Good thing Uncle David has his candy shop, which definitely came up during this activity.


All the pictures of Ellen are action shots. She could not be bothered to stop and pose, since she was so busy covering every surface with a layer of royal frosting followed by a layer of coordinating candy. This is exactly what decorating gingerbread houses with children is about.


I had to work really hard to suppress my conservation instinct, which I dutifully inherited from my Mom, back when we were a little gingerbread house factory, creating little masterpieces to sell to teachers and kids at school. We couldn't use up all the candy on the first house we made, right?

Seeing as the goal here was to get rid of all leftover Halloween and Veteran's Day candy, Ellen did more than her part for the cause.

It was so fun that we did it again the next week with some friends, and then we smashed them and ate them on New Year's Eve when we got back into town afterwards. Nothing like starting a new year with a sugar rush. Mmm.