Gingerbread houses

I have tried to do a variety of crafts with my kids this holiday season. A couple of months ago, with visions of sugar plums and gingerbread villages dancing in my head, I bought a gingerbread house kit. I have anticipated this activity with my son since we threw the pumpkins away and have been waiting for the right time to bring it out and enjoy the decorating. Last Friday seemed to be the perfect time. You judge for yourself if it was the perfect holiday craft for our family. Personally, it wasn't so much a craft as an internal struggle of my OCD and letting my boy do it his way. Harder that you can imagine!

Little boy started out strong. He's really into crafts right now so fully embraced the concept of decorating the house. Unfortunately, planning and foresight are not his strong points, so he fell into a fit when he realized that after shingling half of the roof, he was out of gumdrops.

I have to admit that I never anticipated that the little girl would be interested in decorating the gingerbread house. This was clearly a lack of foresight and planning on my part (must be genetic). She was practically hyperventilating with distress when left out of this activity.

Enter her father, the truly crafty one in the family. Who, like MacGyver, swooped in and made a gingerbread house out of some stale graham crackers and leftover cream cheese frosting. Martha would be so proud!

We call it her Gingerbread Adobe.

I ended up letting the little boy do the whole house by himself. Not only was I proud of him, but I was really proud of myself. What I wouldn't have done to make that whole house symmetric and color coordinated!