Last year, after several years of frustration trying to get those blankety blank gingerbread houses stuck together in such a way that they would actually be fit for a gingerbread man to live in, I gave up and we just made gingerbread men and ate them. It was perfect. No tears, no waiting for the frosting to finally dry, and I didn't have to find a place to store all the gingerbread houses for the rest of the Christmas season. I was hoping it would become the new holiday tradition, but apparently the children had other ideas. They started asking before Thanksgiving if we could please make gingerbread houses again this year. Gingerbread men to eat, but houses to decorate. I said okay, because, after all, Christmas is for children and I am a sucker for those adorable faces. But oh, how I dreaded what I knew was to come. Then my friend Jenna came to the rescue with what to me was a rather radical and avant garde idea. She said she didn't bother with trying to construct the houses with frosting. She used hot glue. I honestly think I heard the Hallelujah Chorus.
Chris was not thrilled with this solution. He seemed to think it was cheating, that it somehow sullied the sanctity of gingerbread house making. But I think it had just been too long since we had tried it last, and he didn't remember the awfulness of my temper tantrum when each house I had just put together would slowly fall apart as I was trying to assemble the next one. Oh, I shudder with the memories. So I ignored his protests and pulled out the hot glue gun. And it worked pretty well. There was one roof that slid back off that I had to reglue, and I admit that Sophie's house completely fell apart two days later. Although I am not sure if that was due to the glue not holding, or the fact that she was ripping off candy rather aggressively at the time of the collapse. At any rate, I am definitely doing it again next time and hereby recommend it to anyone else thinking of building these things.
But of course, for the actual decorating of the houses, I still used frosting. I mean, the kids were going to want to eat the candy later and I didn't want there to be a chance that they would ingest any glue. Our cousin Madeleine is here visiting us from the States, so she helped apply frosting on two of the houses, while I did the other two.
I didn't make Alexandra a house this year, she is still pretty young, and honestly, she was content to just stick a token piece or two on Noah's house.
I take a pretty casual approach to the house decorating. I don't care if it's aesthetically pleasing to anyone else, as long as the child is happy with his/her creation. Also, I say absolutely nothing about how much candy disappears into their mouths, rather than on the houses. I set out the full bowls on the table at the beginning, and when the candy is gone, we are done.
Here are some pictures of the kids and their finished creations.
Sarah immediately started eating hers as soon as it was complete. I think the frosting is kind of disgusting tasting, but she licked off an entire roof!
Decorating is definitely a messy business. We were all a bit sticky afterward, and a change of clothing was a priority for all involved.
But we had a great time, and the houses looked very cute all lined up on the side board in the dining room.
You are a brilliant woman!!!