Have you heard about the Gingerbread house competition with the United Way in North Battleford? You can get details and enter the contest by visiting BattlefordsUnitedWay.ca
A few days ago we decided to have a family night of fun building and ‘decorating’ our own gingerbread house. We decided it would be best to just buy a kit to save on time and having to do dishes… we knew this would be messy enough to begin with!
Before we started everyone was given jobs. My oldest daughter was given the high place of Journeyman Builder. She would assemble the walls and roof. Each of the other kids were given a package of candy for decorating. It started off good. Only a few reminders of “Don’t Eat the Candy! You won’t have any to decorate the house with!” while the structure started to take shape. Walls were up, then the roof!
WOW! This is going better than I thought! Then came sticking on the candy…
Well as the first little bits of coloured gum-drops, and swirly-peppermints were getting jammed into the gobs of icing, the building started to lean, and the roof started to slip and just like that… we were back to the beginning. Except now all of the pieces were covered in sticky sweet icing.
You can imagine the frustration of my Daughter, the Master Builder, as she watched her creation come crashing down. As she started to storm out of the kitchen I sprung into action! I stopped her, gave her a big hug, and told her it would be okay… and to go get the hot glue gun!
Well that was just the ticket! It only took about 10 minutes and we were back to encasing the whole thing in a sickly sweet sugar stucco. It’s all done now and is a full on Christmas Assault on the senses but I tell you it’s perfect… it’s just not for eating.
Whether you’re a skilled Gingerbread House Artist, or you are like me and my family and it’s more about the experience, don’t forget to support the United Way and enter the contest. You can view the beautiful creations while you are shopping at the Frontier Mall this Christmas season starting on Dec 14.
-Nic
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