visions of gingerbread

Gingerbread houses.

Lots of sugary candy stuck to sugary houses with sugary icing.  They are sticky, messy, and send the kids into a sugar high that makes trick-or-treating look tame.  Then there's the part of me that dreams of the houses looking like the cute little ones shown on the box.  And the part of me that has to curb myself from saying, "Stop eating the candy!"

I'm not gonna lie, gingerbread houses are not my favorite part of Christmas.

But.  And this is a really important but!  But, my kids love it.   And my sister had a little village kit for them to decorate while we were back home for Thanksgiving.

So I?  I bit my tongue, hid the box so I couldn't see the "perfect" little houses, grabbed my camera and decided to focus on techniques shown by our little decorators.

The big boys:  All about teamwork.  "I'll use the frosting gun for a while while you stick candy on, then you use the frosting gun while I stick candy on.  Then maybe we'll use the frosting together."  They happily decorated a little house and couldn't be bothered to pose for an "all finished picture."  After all, for them it was about the fun in the moment and then they were off to other things...

The big girls:  More concerned about detail.  I predict that in a few years they'll be creating works of edible art that are "box worthy."  They snuck in a few bites of candy here and there, but they were very focused on the work at hand.  They shared their resources well and chatted throughout the process.  And "all finished pictures?"  You bet!  They were quite proud of their work.

The little ones:  Both clearly embraced the idea that "more is better."  She with the frosting, he with the candy.  Some of that candy and frosting may have even made it onto their house...  Their sugar cravings even showed in their "all finished" shot.

(Just to totally come clean, despite my best efforts to not, I may have chided one of these two to stop eating the candy and then caught the resulting facial expression that shows disbelief that such a statement would be uttered when the candy was there for the taking...)

Ah gingerbread houses.  We'll continue to have a love/hate relationship.  I will say though that after this year it's a little more love and a little less hate...  

See you again next year in all your sticky, sugary glory...