This is the first year, believe it or not, that we've ever done gingerbread houses during the holiday season. We just never thought about it. But then Chloe came upon this little kit where all we had to do was assemble and decorate our own tiny house. I could get behind that.
Unfortunately, each house came all stuck together. Chuck had to 'unstuck' them by cutting on the scored lines. You can imagine how well that turned out. One of us had a cow (Chloe) because our pieces weren't perfect. Others of us used lots of icing to hide said imperfections.
The formation of the house is the actual hardest part. You need 3 hands at least to hold everything together. This was not Chloe's happiest moment. All the lines and pieces were not matching up exactly. We may have even had a little panicking go on.
Bennett used creative architecture techniques, but hey, it's standing - that's really all that matters. The pathetic amount of frosting the kit offered was nowhere near enough. I had to go make some more frosting - thus the beautiful ziplock baggie that Bennett is so delicately applying his frosting with.
These are the finished products. I'm embarrassed to admit that this was mine. I was the first one finished though. I didn't even win a prize. And I made the biggest mess. Tweezers would have been nice. I feel that this would fit in nicely with a display of houses decorated by 1st graders.
Chuck's looks exactly like the picture on the box. Yay for him. His little designer self put the rest of us to shame. The entire time he was decorating his chalet, he kept complaining about the hole size of the frosting tube. He would have preferred multiple frosting bags with varying degrees of hole sizes for all his highly detailed work.
And here's the all important bank that is a must have in every Christmas village. I was actually surprised by the 'less is more' look to Bennett's design. I am also amazed how he got his snow to fall on his roof in the shape of an /s/.
Chloe, on the other hand, subscribes to the 'more is more' mentality. Her entire roof was caked in frosting. She even used a knife to help spread all the 'snow'. But her decorations were very precise and color coordinated. Apparently the bakery got hit by a blizzard.
Overall, it was an ok experience. I can't say I would like to incorporate it as a tradition or anything. However, we may do it again when Gavin gets home so we can watch him go all Donald Duck with the whole experience. I would do it all over again for the laughter and general hilarity that would ensue.
