My Gingerbread House

Chris and I go to a friend's house every December and decorate gingerbread houses. Charla Barton, a dear friend of ours and the mother of one of Chris's best friends, makes the gingerbread from scratch and provides all the candy. I do have to say that decorating houses is one of my favorite things to do in the holiday season. The smell of the warm gingerbread as it fills the house, seeing all of the endless possibilities of color that you can adorn your house with - from pretzels to life savers, with smarties, licorice, gum, tootsie rolls, and much more variety in between, and of course, the frosting to hold it all together - the sky is the limit with your imagination.

This year, I went with the Big Red gum roof as shingles, smarties on the front of the house to add some color, and a licorice door. On the walls of the house I lined tootsie rolls to give it a log cabin feel - and topped it off with large pretzels.

This house has been sitting in my kitchen since before Christmas, and I can't seem to part with it, as silly as that sounds. I have become slightly attached, so I've decided to blog about it.
I wish I had a picture of Chris's house - imagine a few holes in the gingerbread from where bites were taken, making it difficult to put together. But whether we actually make a house or eat the pieces, it's always a fun place to be , the Barton's home, at that time.

The other night, my good friend Katie and her husband came over to play games with us. Katie is the sweets queen. She and I worked together and there wasn't anything I could do to stop her from eating my little treats I would bring in to munch on throughout the day. It obviously wasn't a huge deal, but giving her a hard time was fun. She asked me at first, whenever I had anything to eat, but not after that first little while. Why ask when you know the answer anyway, right? When she was here a couple of nights ago, she took the liberty of diving right in to the roof of my cute little house. Help yourself, Katie... what's mine is yours.