gingerbread house

My family has a long tradition of making gingerbread houses. When we were growing up, all of us would get our own house to decorate and take to share with our school class. Since they were made completely from scratch and there are 8 kids in my family, this was a big project every year! We have kept the tradition going, but these days we generally only make one house. This year I let Jamie decorate the entire thing. It was so fun to see how much he got into it, and it turned out to be my favorite house we've ever made. 

The Preparation

Thomas and Jamie sampling all the candy. I think Jamie ate more candy while making
this house than in the rest of his life combined!

Jamie chose all the colors, but I helped him put the snowman together.

ta-da!

The Final Product

The Details

side #1

side #2

One of my 2 favorite parts. We use cinnamon bears as the inhabitants of the house, and Jamie had two cute ideas with them, all on his own! Here, he put a whole huge group of them around the snowman. You can't see, but one is lying down in the "snow."

My other favorite part. Jamie insisted we put some bears inside the house.
A baby bear, a mommy bear, and a daddy bear, to be precise.

Pretty hard to see once it was all put together, but there they are peeking out the door!

And my mom always adds icicles hanging off the sides of the house. I have never had any luck with those,
so I still let the master take care of that part.