Today, our Advent Activity was “decorate a gingerbread house.”
First, I did all the assembly while Matt and Dibits snuggled. I came to see if she was ready and I was told “go away, Mama!” I think someone was having too much of a nice time with her daddy.
So, later, when she was READY, we started on the gingerbread house. First she had to sample the candy.
I bought a gingerbread village this year, instead of a single house. Don’t do this. It’s more to put together, and harder to decorate.
Elizabeth gave up at some point and I ended up doing most of it myself. (Like I said, five tiny houses is too many.) But look how nice it turned out!
Oh, wait. That is a picture of the box.
Our actual gingerbread houses looked like this:
I did not like this kit as much as I like our generic one last year. Elizabeth agrees. Last year was much better. But I loaded our gingerbread village up on a tiny tray and put it on the dining room table, where I suspect the gumdrops will secretly be pulled off and consumed for the rest of the Christmas season.
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You know, I have never done gingerbread houses with actual gingerbread. I’ve only ever made them with graham crackers.
Dude, these kits are only like $8-$9 and soooo worth it. Of course, I don’t think I would actually EAT any of this gingerbread, but totally worth it to make a house out of. And they smell really good for the rest of the holiday season. Well, last year’s did. I don’t think this year’s house is going to smell like anything.
We had the same idea today, except we made what Josh dubbed “Chanukkah huts.” They are 20 kinds of nasty and they just ate the roof off for dessert. Yours are lovely.
Chanukkah huts!!!! I love it!!
They came out so cute. We did that kit last year on Christmas day with my adult children. This year they are all going to do large ones. We are making it a family tradition for Christmas day. Love the daddy time!
Oh my gosh an ENTIRE VILLAGE you are killing me. I always suspected I was the laziest person ever, but the internet is continually confirming it.
I loved the “fake out” where you showed us the box. No way does anyone’s village turn out to look like that! But I think yours ended up very well.
This isn’t the same kit we had, but I just got all twitchy looking at it.
I love the idea of advent activities! I will have to file that away for next year.
I’ve always loved gingerbread houses, but I don’t think the reality ever matches the picture in my head (or on the box!). But I bet E. had fun with it.
Who knew they make Gingerbread Christmas Villages (or Chanukkah Huts)?! Very cool! They look awesome, but I can only imagine how time intensive they were. This is something we have not tackled with the kids yet, but maybe next year? We still haven’t starting baking our cookies yet this year, so will be getting on that hopefully later today! :)
Like Kathy, I haven’t tried houses with the kids yet. Decorating cookies with them is enough for now :)
I LOVE the idea of doing advent activities. I haven’t made ginger bread houses since elementary school when we collected milk cartons for months so that we could glue grahm crackers to them with sticky-sweet frosting. Actually, I think you inspired me to go do that right now….