We have a dear friend and family who has a tradition every Christmas holiday (I believe it is on Christmas Day) where they gather at their parents' home and everyone spends the day creating their own and best GingerBread House. I remember when they first told me of their tradition and thought I would love for our family to do the same. That was several years ago and since then things have changed for this family. The greatest was the passing of their dear precious mother who courageously battled ovarian cancer. I have awesome memories of her and her family and look forward to sharing her family tradition with mine. As the boys grow older I will share with them of this special family who inspired our new family tradition.
The other day I asked the boys if they wanted to make a gingerbread house and gingerbread men and cookies - they sang with glee "I do." So off to the store we went to get all the goodies. Once all was purchased we hurried home to began our fun adventure. Now it has been a long time since I've prepared anything besides cheese sandwiches and pasta, so the boys were quite intrigued by the gadgets and machinery I was getting out. Their eyes lit up when they saw the huge mixer whipping up the frosting. "Cool" and "Wow" were their words as the watch with joy the big blade whipping around in the massive metal bowl. Boys love equipment. I had to keep adding water to the frosting so it would not dry out just so the boys could continue watching the mixer.
When it came time to put the gingerbread house together I believe we were all too excited to follow the complete instructions by allowing the frosting to dry when the house was put together before decorating that we went ahead and began decorating the gingerbread house. It was hilarious. The roof began sliding off as we were putting on the candies - I ended up holding the house together while the boys continued to decorate. Then all of the sudden Decker thought "Wow, some of these bright colorful candies are fun little balls. I believe I should run around the house and start throwing these pretty little balls everywhere." Lovely, here I am covered with frosting, holding the roof on the gingerbread house so Baily could continue decorating it and Decker is running wild around the house, laughing, and throwing candied balls everywhere. I believe I spent more time cleaning up the frosting and candies, which seemed to be in about every part of the house, than I did preparing and making the gingerbread house. It sure was fun and hilarious. And you know, . . . no matter how messy the gingerbread house is it still looks quite pretty, cute and yummy with all the white frosting and all the bright colored candies.
Thank you Hicks Family to the beginning of a lot of fun special memories.
