The Little House on Candy Cane Lane

Every family has traditions. One of our traditions is that we work together on building a gingerbread house at Christmas. We don't do anything fancy and there is no way I'm baking my own gingerbread pieces or decorating the house with handmade spun sugar. But when creativity and laughter mix with a whole lot of sugar, you can't help but have a good time.

And please note that a tradition can still be a tradition even if it happens a few days AFTER Christmas.

Nicholas started us off by helping to build the house. He was in charge of the icing that glued it all together. Then he used the rest of the icing for decorating and holding the candies in place.



Rachel was only interested in eating the "tandy" before it ever made it onto the house.



The kit came with several gingerbread cut-outs so I got Rachel to help me decorate the gingerbread Christmas tree with green icing and sprinkles. I think as many sprinkles made it into her mouth as made it on the tree.



Eventually we got her interested in actually decorating the house. We let her use the icing too - because neatness has nothing to do with decorating gingerbread houses!



I loved watching Nicholas and Rachel work together on our family project. It warms this mama's heart!





Welcome to the little house on Candy Cane Lane!



And now it's time to eat! Yes there is no more wasting time with formalities here.





I've tried many gingerbread kits in the past and they were all fine. However, this year I tried a new kit that I found at Sam's Club. I really loved it and I will definitely seek it out again next year. The gingerbread pieces all have slots along the sides so the pieces actually connect to each other like a puzzle and then you glue them together with icing. This makes it much sturdier than the other houses where you just stick the two sides together end to end and hope the icing holds it all together. Not only was it sturdy but it was the easiest and quickest gingerbread house I've ever put together that was still standing 30 minutes later. The kit came with lots of candy for decorating and get this...the candy and the gingerbread actually tasted good. Imagine that!