Gingerbread Houses

It is that time of year....gingerbread. First the houses then the men. It is our fun family tradition to decorate gingerbread houses. Yes I make one house from scratch as you can see the twins helped me work on it. Steven figured out how to squeeze that royal icing out and he was having a blast! Austin's pretzel roof looks good, he did it himself.

A few years ago I could tell one house was not enough because of the disagreements on what to put where so we started something new. Each child makes their own little house and yes I cheat and use graham crackers for these ones. We started one year and had all our cousins over (almost all were in town that year over 20 kids!!), then the next year most cousins were not in town so we started inviting some friends to join us. It is now a mix of cousins and friends. We enjoy sharing the experience and it is really easy to share the candy. I still have lots of candy left.

The secret to making it so easy and stable....I get empty milk cartons from school and bring them home and wash them. Then it is really easy to stick the graham crackers around the carton without fear of the house falling over. It is so easy the twins who are two could do it mostly by themselves. I would squeeze the icing and they would place the graham crackers or decorate with candy.

I love gingerbread...Made the cookie dough for the men tonight. We roll them out tomorrow!! Yummy! I use a different dough for my house and men. I like the house strong so the dough is firmer and drier so it last well, but I love my cookies soft. It will be a long day tomorrow with all the cookie cutting out and baking but it is a labor of love. And each year the kids get better at helping. I will post some pics of cookies they decorate later.