Traditions, that is. For the past several years, we have made and decorated gingerbread houses at Christmas time. That is to say, I baked the houses, painstakingly cutting all the pieces so they would fit "just right". I would gather up all the cardboard bases, cover them with tin foil and try to "glue" the houses together so the kids could decorate them. But usually, no matter what recipe for the frosting I tried, those suckers would fall apart, and fall apart, and fall apart, til I was ready to scream. No, I actually did scream, and then we would decorate them even though they had sideways walls and no roofs and then later I would try to fix them again. It was a ton of work, a ton of stress, and then the kids never did eat the dang things because after sitting out for two weeks, the gingerbread was gross.
So this year, we changed things up a bit. I made gingerbread dough, and let the kids roll it out and make cookies. They could decorate them with all kinds of different candies and frosting, and eat as many as they wanted of both while they were doing it. There was no screaming, there was no stress, and everyone had a great time. In fact, it was so much fun, that I told the kids we could make a second batch of gingerbread cookies a little closer to Christmas, since they love them so much. This is a tradition I can live with. Thank goodness I let go of the dream! 🙂
Sarah ate about a third of her dough raw. She would stick the white chocolate chips into the cookie shape she had cut out, and just when I thought she was going to lay it on the cookie sheet, it would disappear into her mouth instead. She did complain of a slight stomachache later, but she had fun at the time. 🙂
Nicholas was very proud that he figured out a way to use up every last scrap of his dough, with none wasted. At one point, he had formed a gingerbread boy kind of like you would with playdough. When I explained that it was a bit fat, and might not bake so well, he rerolled it out and used the cookie cutter instead. But again, no yelling or shouting and frustration, just a few suggestions and a lot of laughs and fun. It also helps that the kids are a bit older now and don't need quite so much hands-on help.
We ate the creations for dinner, along with a few leftovers. I love relaxing days like that. It is most definitely starting out to be a very merry Christmas.