A New Christmas Tradition

Every year, for several years, our family has made a gingerbread house for Christmas. 

our 2018 creation

When the kids were little I would tell them not to eat these houses (silly me!) because it was so much work to make them! However I did know that it was an irresistible temptation for them, and expected the candies to be gone within a week, and it was all good fun.

Rachel is probably 18 months old in this picture. That means we've been doing the gingerbread house thing for about fourteen years!

Well, within the last four to five years the kids stopped picking all the candies off of the houses and eating them, and I realized that a lot of the fun of the gingerbread house had gone away. We still made them, and they looked nice and made our house smell great, but after Christmas we'd smash the house up and throw it away. Bummer.

So this year I came up with a new idea to put the fun back into it. What if we made our house and then gave it to a family with little kids who would really appreciate all the candies, frosting, and giant cookies? When I proposed this to my kids they were very enthusiastic. So the house-building began:

Last Sunday I drew up a pattern and we baked all the pieces.

The kids decorated the windows and we poured in the hard candy "glass" on Sunday night, too. 

Kaylie is decorating the front wall before we begin construction.

making the pillars for the front porch
The peppermint sticks weren't tall enough, so we molded white chocolate mixed with crushed peppermint to make the bottoms of the pillars. When we started building we realized they still wouldn't be tall enough, so we made more chocolates to cap the pillars. Still too short. The starlight mints just did the trick.

It seems like we have an accident every year, and this year was no exception. This wall fell down and broke, and the window popped out. It was Michael's idea to use graham cracker pieces to brace it on the inside.

A string of 20 Christmas lights is built right into the house. This year I (rather cleverly, if I do say so) drilled some holes into roof pieces to make a porch light, and to light the...can't think of the name... the room that pops out of the roof which, otherwise, wouldn't have gotten any light.

decorating...

...more decorating
(Look at that mess on the table! It covers our entire eight-foot-long table while we build and decorate.)

And here is the finished house:

front (not plugged in)

sides

and back

We finished it up late Tuesday night.

Now, the entire time we were planning the house, I was trying to think of who we should give it to. There are so many families with little kids; how could I choose? But on Sunday, while we were filling in the windows, Jessica told me a story: She had taught the five and six-year-old primary class that morning, and one little girl told Jessica that she was asking Santa for a gingerbread house this year. !! So when the house was finished I contacted her mom and asked if her family could use a gingerbread house. (I didn't want to take it there if Mom already had one, or had big plans to make one.) Mom said, "Yes!!!" 

Yay!

So the real fun was on Wednesday afternoon, when the kids and I went to deliver the gingerbread house to our neighbors.

Two little girls admiring their new house. (The little one on the left is the girl who was asking Santa for a gingerbread house.)

They were very excited when Michael plugged in the lights; they were delighted with the "Santa" in the chimney and the snowmen in the yard. It was fun to see them all "ooh" and "ahh" over it. As we got ready to leave, little E— asked, "How did you know I wanted a gingerbread house?" And I said an elf told us. Mom said, "They must have an elf in their house!"

That started a whole new, excited conversation. "We have an elf in our house!" And they showed us their Elf on the Shelf, and  the naughty and nice list she had made. I noticed that all of the family names were nice, but the Lego men were naughty, so I asked about that. Apparently there had been a big battle overnight and the Lego men had taped the Elf to the wall; we got to hear about that in pretty great detail. :-)  (I imagine the family freed the Elf, which helped them on the nice list.) It was lots of fun to see how excited the kids were—and Mom, too!

The next day Mom posted some pics on facebook, with this caption: Look what we got on our doorstep from the North Pole!! My girls absolutely love this! We're grateful for the Christmas magic...It was just what E—had on her Christmas wish list. Thank you!

Hooray!

I see that a gingerbread lady has been added. And some chocolate chips on the ground. (reindeer droppings?)  :-)

I had asked Mom not to mention our names, but I am delighted that she used "the North Pole," since that is what our card would have said if we'd delivered it anonymously.

And here are a couple of pictures she posted of her girls doing just what kids should do with a gingerbread house:

So we had a lot of fun, and I believe this is a Christmas tradition that we'll keep for a long, long time!

Merry Christmas!