My Gingerbread House

One of the things I love about being married is sharing in the traditions of J’s family. One of their annual holiday traditions is making a gingerbread house. When I first heard about this tradition (years ago) images of small milk-carton or graham cracker houses came to mind. Well, boy was I wrong. These are not your average amateur candy huts. My mother in law has gingerbread molds and multiple pastry bags with various icing colors and piles of candy that she collected throughout the year.

The day after Thanksgiving when the boys went to work (poor guys!), my mother in-law, sister in-law and I started on our houses. We blasted Christmas music and began to putting together the yard (cardboard and aluminum foil) and the house walls, snacking on our little “decorations” as we went. I was finally able to finish it last night and here is the final product!

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Below is the front of the house and the yard. You can’t really see it, but there is a Christmas tree inside the house near the doorway.  (Can you see our mistletoe in the left part of the photo? It’s hanging from our ceiling fan.;)

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In the yard we have a nice little group of chocolate Santas warming themselves by the fire made out of cinnamon and candy corn. My MIL said they were in group therapy. :)

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This picture below didn’t turn out great, but there is a little pond in the yard with a pipe-cleaner man sitting on a bench made of kit-kat and a wafer.

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I love the way the peanut fireplace turned out with a pile of toosie roll wood next to it.

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It is such a fun tradition, a great bonding experience (especially while putting on the icicles — it’s so hard!), and I love the way  mine turned out.

Have you ever made a gingerbread house?

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