Monday, December 15, 2008

Gingerbread houses 2008

Whew ! This thing just keeps getting bigger every year. That's a good thing, I think. We had 15 people show up this year, and a total of 11 houses built, collapsed, and partially eaten. The important thing is that everyone went home with a sugar high and a slight tummy ache from all the sweets. Of course, I have pictures !!! (as usual, you can click on each one to enlarge them.) The teens, or most of them and our ginger bread Villiage on th table. (left to right) Jake, his girl friend, Chrissy, she's just cute as a button. Patrick, Crazy Quentin, and topless Christian. This is Jake and Patrick fighting over Chrissy, the poor girl is between them somewhere.



This is a photo of all the goodies laid out on the table. We had a second, identical table downstairs in the family room for Heather and some of her friends as well. (Christian, Chrissy, and Caleb)




This is ginger bread house was a collaboration between Roy and Nick. I think that Nick built the basic graham cracker structure and Roy did the decoration. I love the Starlight mints and the front walk way!



This lovely work of art belongs to my grandson, Caleb. They were running late this afternoon, actually, Jasmin forgot, so I built the house structure for him before he arrived and Caleb spent almost three hours working on the decoration. Of course he took lots of breaks to beat the crap out of Tyler, climb on Jake, shoot people with guns that he hijacked from Jake's room, and feed the dogs. He was a very busy guy. I'm guessing that he crashed out and slept like a log when his mom got him home.


This is Jasmin's "plantation house" Gingerbread creation, complete with Rice Chex roof tiles, chocolate and licorice windows, Skittles Christmas lights, Mike N Ike lamp posts, a marshmallow snowman, and a festive Life Saver wreath for the front door. Landscaping was done with Andes mint pavers and a gummy bear family to play in the powdered sugar snow. Yep, she put in about three hours work on this. (without play breaks) We all unanimously agreed that she wins this year. But then, she had every intention of doing that. She warned me in an email on Friday, that it was her plan to kick everyoneelse's butt this year - and she did.



This is Chrissy's Ginger bread house. We all named it The Barbie Town house. Rather than focusing on the outside, Chrissy is more into interior design. This one includes a full bath (with Life Saver toilet seat and M&M bubble bath garden tub) One bedroom, with Starburst bed and coverlet, and a Living room with a Starburst Couch, floor rug, and a Mr. Good bar flat screen T.V. Very creative !



This is Tyler's Gingerbread house. I think he was inspired by the Wizard of Oz. Note the yellow brick road over pass and the Munchkin city below.


This is Quentin's final gingerbread product. It was a three story Castle with moat, but then, he exhaled. Now, it's the Gingerbread City Scrap Yard. Strangely, this what my house usually looks like when Quentin leaves at the end of the day.
This is Jakes House. I'm not sure that he even had time to figure out the final outcome. It collapsed during construction and he just moved on to socializing with all his friends and throwing candy at people. He's easily distracted by pretty colors and sweet foods.


This is Christian, my grandson's gingerbread house. I'm not sure what he calls this, as usual, Christian was too busy socializing, and displaying his manly chest to give it a name. It's a little conventional compared to his creation last year, a gingerbread skate park.


This is Jennifer, Nicks girlfriend, and Christian's cousin's gingerbread house. It's a cozy little bungalow, perfect for a gummy bear family of three, but it has a carport. Over dinner we concluded that she may be sending Nick a message.




This is Ana, my grand daughter's open, airy, gingerbread house with an actual gingerbread family. I think it looks very much like a gingerbread snow fort with all the marshmallow snow balls and a Tootsie Pop snow shovel out front.



This is Heather's Gingerbread house. She did a really good job, but my kids have had several years of practice at Gingerbread house building. Roy says it looks like a Church, but Caleb kept calling it Santa's workshop - he was very excited and impressed.


This gingerbread house was made by Alexis, Heather's friend and our next door neighbor. This is her first try at gingerbread house building and I think she did a great job. I like the colorful rooftop lights and all the yard decorations.



Another photo of the kids at work. Tyler, Christian, Chrissy and Caleb.


I think that everyone had a good time, I know that I did. It was actually the first time that I started to feel a bit of Christmas spirit this year. The next big event will be Friday night. We are going to be painting Christmas ornaments. It's something that we have usually done with just the four, or five, of our immediate family. I'm hoping that it will draw some of the kids back and that they will enjoy it as much as we always have. I'm thinking that I may have to come up with a few other craft projects to keep the kids entertained during the Christmas break. I haven't really got anything planned yet, so I'll have to see what I can come up with to keep them out of trouble. Then, on New year's Day, we are going to do a big Dinner with family and friends, and I need to figure out how many will be coming, no one seems to want to think ahead that far.


Just as everyone was leaving this evening, it started to snow and sleet. The temperatures dropped from almost 60 degrees this afternoon to 11 degree s in just a few hours !! I have finally heard from everyone so I know that they all got home safely. (the streets are really slippery) It's supposed to continue until 3:00AM tonight, and Jake and Heather are hoping and praying that they will get a snow day tomorrow. It's 2:30 AM now, and the ground is just barely white, but I haven't seen any street crews, so it just depends on how bad the roads are in the morning. Who knows? If the school bus companies decide that the roads are unsafe, they may cancel school. Anyway, I need to get up early to find out, so I better get myself off to bed. Good night all.


Love,

Susan















1 howled back:

Anonymous said...

Oh I really enjoyed reading your commentary and looking at the creations on display..it was great, thanks!

Gingerbread making is sloooooowly getting more popular. For the first time this year I have seen a gingerbread house making kit you could buy...and they do pop up in store windows from time to time.
I should do something like that with my kids, they would love it. Emmakate especially, she gets right into creating stuff.
my boys and I just get into eating the stuff.

:) love ya and glad you got some christmas cheer happening x