Gingerbread Houses 2012

Our gingerbread house-making tradition with family friends continued this year, though we were forced, for the very first time in 19 years, to forge ahead with one of the group missing.  With Ashley now living far enough away that a day-trip home is no longer possible, we were one house-maker down, so we decided to invite all of the parents to join us for a change.  The dads (surprise, surprise!) declined, but the mothers agreed, so we ended up with five houses this year between the two families!

Our mini ginger-village!

Last year, we reported that 2012 would be the 20th anniversary of our house-making tradition, but after a year-long diligent search for pictures and other "archival evidence" on the part of both friend T and myself, we've come to the conclusion that we probably started our tradition a year later than we initially assumed.  That means that this year was officially our 19th (despite last year's report to the contrary), and that next year we'll be celebrating the "big" 20th.  So all of those ideas that we were brainstorming last year are still on the table for next year's round of houses!

My inspiration this year came from candy canes, though it still has a pseudo-Victorian flair.  As usual, I started by "painting" my walls with frosting, but instead of doing the standard solid color, I did a marbled look with red and white.  I wasn't quite sure if the experiment would be successful, but in the end, it worked pretty well and I was generally pleased. 

Waiting for the "paint" to dry: my walls are on the left, with J's on the right.

The pillars of the front porch literalize the candy cane theme, which is carried into the tiled roof.  Green wreaths, garlands, and little sprigs of holly add a splash of green to the mix, making for the most Christmassy house I think I've ever created!

My "candy cane" house...

...with the front porch decorated for Christmas!

Roof detail.

Friend T's house came out lovely, created to echo a traditional New England farmhouse, complete with stone chimney, long back porch, and a mini grove of trees. 

T's "New England farmhouse" house.

T's house from above.

Her brother J's house, as expected, was yet another engineering marvel.  After last year's windmill, we wondered what new tricks he could possibly have up his sleeve, but he certainly didn't disappoint; his lighthouse actually does light up, cleverly concealing its electric components within walls of gingerbread, pretzels, and frosting.  Pretty impressive, isn't it?  It goes without saying that the bar for next year's creations has now been considerably raised by the introduction of this new potential!

J's lighthouse with...you guessed it...a light!

And just in case you're wondering, T and J's mum crafted a log cabin house, decorated with Christmas lights and surrounded by a neat little pretzel fence.  My mum ended up with the most traditional house, covered in gumdrops and lots and lots of frosting.  When we arranged them all on the table for a finale photo (see above), we were quite chuffed with how cute they all looked together, clustered in their little ginger village.

The gingerbread-and-pretzel log cabin crafted by T and J's mum.

 

Additional pictures can be found in the flickr set.  Stay tuned for next year's anniversary edition of the Gingerbread House Tradition!

The Tradition Continues: Gingerbread Houses 2011

Every year for the past nineteen years (as we explained in last year's gingerbread post), Ashley and I make gingerbread houses with family friends.  This year was no different, as we all gathered the day after Thanksgiving to create houses # 73, 74, 75, and 76 (that's counting between the four of us over 19 years!).

This year, in keeping with her theme from the last couple of years, Ashley made a Colonial Williamsburg-inspired blue house.  It has two central chimneys and dormer windows, and is decorated with wreaths and a pineapple over the door.

The roof of Ashley's house, with the cute dormer windows and the two chimneys.

My house (as usual!) is Victorian-esque with its porch and pastel colors and little side garden.  As a first this year, I actually forgot a chimney; I decorated the entire roof before I realized it and then it was too late to add one!  Ah well, next year!

Miss T, one of our friends, made a Christmas house with Santa, reindeer, a garden full of evergreens, and lots of red and green.  Her house came out so cute!  Mr J, her brother and always the most adventurous of us all, created an amazing gingerbread engeineering marvel: a windmill!  After only one minor mishap, he got the wheel to stick to the tower he constructed for it and it looks pretty incredible.  We never cease to be amazed by the things he comes up with!

Next year will be our 20th anniversary for this tradition, and we've already begun brainstorming some potential ways in which we might mark this milestone.  One idea is to begin with four generic houses and then pass them from one person to next around the table, every person adding a different element as the houses continue to circulate, so that we'd create four houses between the four of us, each a collective conglomeration of all of us.  Another idea is to make the four parents create their own houses next year, while we of the younger generation sit back and watch!  Our mum and our friends' mother made their own houses for a couple of years, but it's been a while and we can tell they're eager to try their hands at it again!  The real challenge will be to convince the dads that they want to do their own, too!  Our friends' father has already said he's willing to rise to the challenge, but our dad is going to take a little more convincing.  We've got a year to do it, though, so we'll see!  :-)

A Christmas Tradition: Gingerbread Houses

One of our yearly Christmas traditions is that my sister and I make gingerbread houses with family friends.  This year marked our eighteenth (yes, eighteenth!) year, and the four of us are always amazed by how different and unique our end products end up being, despite the many years and many houses between us (if you do the math, we've collectively made a total of 72 houses!).  We've all learned a good deal over the years, including, but hardly limited to, the following:

1) don't over-bake your gingerbread or it'll look like a fire-charred mess that even frosting can't fix
2) don't let the one-year-old baby near the egg-whites when he's deathly allergic to eggs (that one-year-old is now 19, so I promise he survived the ordeal!)
3) cardboard is a miraculous substitute for gingerbread that any four-year-old will fall for (that four-year-old is 22 now, and we still won't let her live that one down!)
4) never forget The Secret Ingredient or you (or rather, your house) will pay
5) completed houses cannot stand with only two walls.  Three, maybe.  But not two.
6) below-freezing temperatures are an excellent frosting-dryer
7) it usually takes three months to scrape the frosting off the floor...if you're lucky...

This year, Ashley made a Colonial Williamsburg-inspired whitewashed house with a little porch, an 18th-century formal garden, and a pasture to house her marzipan lamb, who came all the way from Vienna as a gift from her boss.  Although the rest of us think the house came out lovely, she isn't happy with the final product, so my house will have to stand alone this year on the blog (though I will sneak in a picture of the lamb because he's so cute!).

I usually end up with some kind of very traditional-looking Victorian-inspired concoction, and this year was no different.  Yes, everything on and in and about the house is completely edible (though you might break your teeth if you tried nibbling now...!).  The only thing you can't eat is The Secret Ingredient, but that's between the four of us house-makers and Martha Stewart!  :-)

The only near-tragedy that occurred this year was some minor trauma (falling off the counter) and violence (being smacked off the roof by my elbow) inflicted on my tower.  But there's (almost) nothing a little frosting can't fix!

Miss T, one of our fellow house-makers, made a yellow house nestled in a forest of trees and animals this year, while her brother, Mr J, made one of the identifying buildings from his college campus.  In years past, we've had everything from a Harry Potter Hogwarts castle (that was Mr J) to the Prentis store at CW (that was Ashley) to a massive Monticello that Ashley and I made between us.  It just isn't Christmas without gingerbread!