So every year since Brandon was about two years old, we have always bought a gingerbread kit at Costco and had fun decorating it together. Last year, Donovan was upset because he was left out so this year I decided we would all have fun and all three boys would construct their own house. Mom and I went to Fred Meyer and they had the kits.... a house or this REALLY cool Gingerbread train. I knew I just had to have a train but the price was $12.99 each! .... That was like $40!Seemed awfully expensive so mom said "that is way too much....... let's just make our own!" Of course, what a grand idea! What fun and how CHEAP and easy! We made our way to the baking aisle and found the molasses. The next stop was to the candy aisle where we shopped for the best bargains. I began to wonder if by the time we added it all up whether or not it was really that "cheap," but it still seemed like the best alternative. And besides that, we were going to have such fun making them, right?
At mom's house that night, with the little kids catching a nap, Mom and Brandon mixed up the dough, he measured it all out into the kitchenaide and had a blast. When the little kids woke up from their naps, they saw all the candy on the table and were ready to go. I had to inform them that we first had to make the gingerbread pieces before we could decorate them. (my first pleas.... but not my last pleas for patience).
We didn't have any cookie cutters to make houses, much less trains, so I grabbed mom's Cutco butcher knife and began rolling out the dough and cutting out various shapes that I thought we needed. "They're not going to match." my mom warned me...But hey, It was going to be fine, I assured her. In order to cool them more quickly, as the cookies came out of the oven, I took them outside in the frigid temperatures to cool. Okay, now mom not only had flour and pieces of raw cookie dough on her floor, but now she also had a cookie fragmet trail from the oven to the counter (where I first thought I would let them cool) to the door and then outside. oops, sorry mom.
Lucky for me, gingerbread cookies, despite how thick they are, cool very quickly at 2 degrees F. Oh wait... "Mom, you need to make the frosting! Quick it is already 8:30!" Mom whipped up her concoction and we were ready to go. I figured we would let Donovan and Tysen go first and then Brandon could spend more time afterwards doing his own. I asked him to be D's helper, and sat down next to Ty. One glance at my train pieces told me that none off them were going to work for the little boys. I looked at the boys who were already getting impatient. Mommy decided to resort to Plan B.... "We're just going to make houses, not trains." I told them. I handed Brandon four pieces for walls and began trying to glue four walls together with white frosting for Ty.
My mind began to wonder....
Hmmm..... Those kits had the pieces already cut out ....and they all MATCHED .....and they had groves IN the board on which they were supposed to stand....funny how I never appreciated the simplicity of it all in years past.
Making four different-sized pieces fit together onto a flat board proved much harder than our usual annual assembly. I happened to notice that at this point, mom has left us and has now joined Dad in the living room, watching t.v.... what?! Brandon and I both managed to get the sides up... with several collapses of course..... and then grabbed the pieces for the roof. .... Great, they were TOO BIG! I grabbed the knife again, ready to remedy that situation... I sliced the piece in half and smothered it with frosting. That oughta make it stick... right?.......wrong. At this point I yelll out the only smart thing to do........."Mom!!!!" (See we may grow up, but we don't ever grow out of it.)
Mom returns to the kitchen with a smug smile on her face, tires not to laugh at me and gets the graham crackers I ask for. I open the package to find out they are all broken.... great. Mom reaches for the second package of crackers, she realizes they are not broken. Awesome! I begin to attach them as a make-shift roof. the graham crackers break .... This isnt working either. This is so NOT as smooth as I had imagined it would all go.... I smile at Tysen and tell him,"Hey! Guess what! We are going to make New Mexico style gingerbread houses... Adobe House Style!" you know, they ones with the flat roofs? I slather on some more frosting and lay graham crackers flat on the roof. Brandon follows suite. Mom is making fun of me at this point so I decide to attempt a second layer of graham to achieve a true raised roof. Ah, and succeed.... sort of.
I notice a darastic color differentiation between the color of the gingerbread and the light color of the graham cracker. Oh well, many houses have roofs that are a different color, right?
Now that it is already late, it is time to start letting the kids decorate. Donovan really got into it. Ty on the other hand, was more interested in eating the candy. It is a good thing I decided to ignore how much he was eating and never really knew exactly how much he had consumed in that sitting. I kept telling him that he was supposed to put them on his house, not eat them....So when reminded, he would take the candy OUT OF HIS MOUTH and then place it ON his house. Yummy. Ty's house has many candies with teeth marks in them or slobberified/chewified pieces stuck on it. So, note to anyone reading this, do NOT eat from the house TY and I made. Or at least you have been forewarned.
The boys finished up and the houses, (despite my mom and I's silly remarks throughout the whole ordeal) turned out REALLY cute. I mean.... where could you buy one of these? Nowhere I tell you! These are Bonafide.... ORIGINAL, BABY! And the boys were so proud of them. Ty was covered in goo but Dad took him and Donovan to go watch a movie. Brandon and I began constructing our Gingerbread Train..... then mom helped up decorate it. We were getting pretty tired at this point but gave it our best efforts. We thought it turned out pretty cute too.
So, even though we figured out we probably ended up paying just as much for them, our homemade gingerbread versions turned out to be a fun success. They were cute, original and a lot of fun. Hey, maybe we have a new tradition.... But on second thought.... maybe that box at the store wasn't so expensive after all! lol Ask me again in about 365 more days.
Enjoy the pics..... and Merry Christmas to you all.... Love,
