I admit it: prior to yesterday I was a Gingerbread House Virgin. Through twenty-plus years of motherhood, I’d managed to avoid ever baking, never mind decorating, a gingerbread house. The desire just was not there. I couldn’t have been less interested.
Then something incredible happened: I wanted to make one. Something shifted inside me and I really wanted to do it…and then…
I got lucky.
🙂
Tip: do it for the first time with someone who knows what they are doing!
Okay, enough double entendre. My friend Kristen (see her blog here) is a fabulous baker and she invited my daughter and me to be part of her (tenth, I think) annual ritual of baking and decorating a Gingerbread House with her son, something I’d never done with my own son in his childhood (but hey, we did make dozens—dozens!–of Christmas cookies over the years! Just sayin’.).
Our jobs were to bring something flat to put the house on the day prior, and to buy some candy to contribute to the stash of building supplies.
Oh, and to show up. 🙂
The end result? Amazing. The ideas the kids came up with were so creative–it was just wonderful to watch their minds working. Plus, my friend and I got to chat virtually uninterrupted for at least an hour.
This is definitely an activity I would like to do again next year.
The irony? My son was making his first Gingerbread House at the same time at his girlfriend’s house with her family. Go figure.
Watch the slideshow that follows to see what we used for materials. 🙂
Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker 