Oh Gingerbread!

What can I say about gingerbread?  From as far back as I can remember, gingerbread has been a huge part of Christmas for me and my family.  I believe kindergarten was the first year my family made the delectable house-shaped treats as thankyou Christmas gifts for teachers at school and church as well as for friends and neighbors.  Through the years we went through many different blue prints to find the best shaped house for kids to decorate and families to enjoy.  There were even a few years that we ventured away from houses and tried gingerbread trees and sleighs.  While those were also fun, they just didn't stand the test of time.  Gingerbread houses, for our family, are a huge tradition that I now joyfully carry on from my own home!

Most years, the Thanksgiving turkey has barely left it's perch on the dining room table when discussion of Gingerbread baking begins.  I'm always excited for that day as, to me, it signifies the beginning of celebrating Christmas!  The past few years have been especially fun, because we get to do the majority of the baking at my home.  When we moved into our current house, we ripped out all of the kitchen appliances--the single oven was replaced with Dacor double convection ovens!  Oh the joy!!!  Because of this beauty of an appliance, we are able to bake six gingerbread dough houses at once.  It really cuts down on all the baking prep time, so we can generally complete all our baking in one day.  While my house may be a mess of flour, molasses, oil and spices, the aroma that is a part of our home is well worth the clean-up involved!  In addition to the wonderful smells of gingerbread, I get to spend the whole day with my mom.  That in itself makes me happy. 

I love being able to carry on a tradition in my home that she so creatively began in her home when she was a younger mother than I am now.  She has worked so hard to help each of her children (me included) know that Christmas is first about celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ; everything else needs to stem from that one truth.   How does making gingerbread houses branch off from this most important point?  We make the houses to share our love and gratitude for those around us.  We rarely keep more than one house for our own, even though we make dozens.  We give these candy-covered cookie gifts created with our time, hands, love and imagination so we can tell people thank you.

Okay, enough talk, on to the houses!

Once the baking has been completed, these are the pieces we begin to put together.  Royal icing is our glue of choice because it gets as hard as rock when it dries...that always makes transporting to their new homes so much safer!!

Before and after.

These are a few of our creations this year.

We are strong believers in having the kids decorate the houses they will give to their teachers.  The first year our oldest began decorating houses for his teachers, it was a real test for me to step back from my symetrical self and allow him to create as his imagination lead him.  Now it's just fun to see what they think of next.  Me, yep, I'm still hooked on symetry when I decorate!

While we have gingerbread houses to decorate at our own home, we always start out by decorating one with Grammy (and often cousins too) at her house.  It always makes my heart happy to see my kids loving time with grammy and grandpa.

We love Christmas!  We love the reason we celebrate Christmas, we love the ways we celebrate Christmas, and we love the people with which we get to celebrate Christmas! 

Merry Christmas, to everyone!