The Gingerbread House Project

When I was a kid, we didn't make gingerbread houses.  Okay, that's not exactly true.  We didn't make them as a big family project.  We would occasionally make them at school or at Girl Scouts or something like that, but it wasn't a family tradition.  Plus, we didn't even use gingerbread.  We would cut up a cardboard milk container to use as the base and then glue graham crackers to it with frosting (or possibly just glue) and go from there.

Somewhere along the way after Andy was born I bought a gingerbread house.  He was probably two or three years old.  Back then I liked doing fun, creative things with my kid because there was just one of him, we didn't have a lot of other things going on, and I got to decide how messy the project got.  So different from life today.

Over the last several years, we've continued to buy them and now the holiday season is somehow not complete without a gingerbread house.  The problem is, Charlie and I hate making them.  We either break the roof, or the wall, or the frosting is too thick or it won't stick together.  There is always some drama with the house.  It's rare that we get through a year of making one without something going wrong.

One year we found one that comes with a plastic base that the pieces just fit into.  That way if your frosting glue doesn't work well it still stays together, except for the roof sliding off.  We were so happy that year.  Rediculously happy, really, for two highly educated people, but when you have a gingerbread house deficiency you need the plastic base.  We may have found that same house one other year, but I didn't find it this year.

The funny thing is that when I buy them I don't always scrutinize them carefully enough.  Sometimes the boxes are very deceptive and look like there is a base or that it will be easy, but then you open it up and it's just wrong.  Yesterday when we opened the box and there was no base Charlie decided he was going to go out and buy a new one.  That's how bad it is.  We aren't even willing to try to make it without the base.  He was gone quite awhile, however, and when he came back he had a new house but it didn't have a base either.  Ugh, now we have to do two!

The kids did the one I bought last night.  I sort of followed the directions, which I don't think we've even done.  I glued the walls together first and we let them sit for about 30 minutes.  Then I glued on the roof and we let that sit for another 30 minutes.  We've never made it that way before.  Usually we put it together and instantly start decorating.  That may be why it falls apart so often.

Regardless of what a pain in the ass it really is, the reason we keep doing it is because the kids love it.  Last night while all three of them were working on the house by themselves, Charlie and I both kept our distance, there was no fighting whatsoever.  They got along great and were so happy with their house.  That is what the holiday and the tradition are all about.  Of course it wasn't a spectacular looking gingerbread house when they were done, but in their eyes it was beautiful.

Plus, next weekend we are going to do the one Charlie bought so that was just the practice house.  Good thing, because look what happened after the kids went to bed.