At our annual "gingerbread" decorating party, our day was filled with candy-laden graham cracker houses and bits of frosting everywhere. This year, I decided to go with traditional royal icing for the mortar rather than the melted sugar like last year.
To make house construction go a bit faster and easier, I did two things. First, I used one cracker for a bottom base, gluing it to the cake board then building the sides around it--it made a huge difference in stability! And second, I did not make gabled sides...doing those pointy sides always made for dozens of crumbled and unusable crackers. I wised up this go and simply cut crackers in half for the sides. I then added a cookie to cover most of the gap. I thought they looked like wreaths.
We had 37 kids this year. And as luck would have it, it turned out that the holiday party for my new job was the night before this party. Charlie and I had a great time at the business party. But it left me in no shape to get the house ready for our party. Luckily, no one seemed to mind and my good friends helped shoulder many of my hostess duties.
Notes to myself for next year:
* First and foremost, do not drink wine hand over fist, no matter how good it is or how fancy the bottle, on Gingerbread Eve. Just don't do it.
* The bag of 8 lbs of mixed candy, available at Costco, is a bargain and works great but takes a bit of time to unwrap the individual pieces. Do it ahead of time--the candies will not stick as long as no other soft candy is introduced to the mix (keep away mini marshmallows and any soft mints!).
* Open House style and brunch time worked well as did the simple menu (bagels, salmon, fruit, breakfast casseroles, coffee, cider, and then pulled pork sandwiches for lunch).
* Cake pops were probably not necessary as there were plenty of sweets. But they still went!
Check out the cake pop stand Charlie fashioned--details to follow...
Every year we wonder whether we'll do it again the next year. But so far, we don't think the boys are outgrowing it, so odds are we will. I hope so; I love this tradition. And I love how proud they are of their creations.
Hope your holidays are as sweet as can be, too!
Sandra