Tradition

Last year's beauty...the second annual gingerbread house

I am not going to put a picture of it on the blog.

Yesterday, when I bought the kit from the Warehouse store, Kenz was thanking me, over and over. She was looking forward to the evening. I paid ten dollars for the thing and carried it carefully to the car.

While setting it up on her mom's coffee table, Kenz ran and got a towel. Nana, mommy doesn't want any frosting in the  glass cracks. The towel fit perfect, a nice peach color to go with our activity.

The kit had good clear directions. Kenz set the pieces in the same order as shown on the box. Nana, one of the pieces is cracked.  Darn, the floor had a slice through it, but not in a place that would matter. We could cement it with frosting.

The frosting had been soaking in the bag in a bowl of warm water. I cut off the tip, handed it to Kenz and said "let the mess begin."

She poured concrete for the side walls, then the front and back doors. Hurray, framing stage was done.
Next she carefully lined the tops of the walls with the sticky white frosting, which kept leaking on her fingers which kept finding her tongue. On went the roofs.  Two of them. It was up and Kenz was jumping up and down with joy.

Let the decorating begin.

Powered snow went first, she frosted the whole thing even the  entryway, then rolled the sticky bag of frosting and globbed it on the rooftop.  Green gumdrops lined the crevices.  Cinnamon gumdrops became bushes. Sprinkles became sprinkles.  A winter wonderland.

 I started sorting more of the candy stuff for Kenz to put on, but she was already onto the enclosed gingerbread ornaments, threading the red wire through the openings. I'm not decorating these, she said going back and forth to the Christmas tree. "They look nice... plain,"  I told her, noticing that one of the snowmen had a big bite out of it's bottom ball.

Then it happened.

"Shell, help, come here quick, please."  My daughter dashed from her program, (The Hoarders) and sat in front of the coffee table trying to save it.  But it was no use. The roof slipped off  and the walls caved in. We tried to do a major remodel, but the foundation cracks gave way. The house had collasped.

It's in my car, back in the box, in many pieces. It's going back to the Warehouse. I will get my 10 dollars back. We followed the directions. The cracked piece was not visible through the cellephane when we bought it. I had handled it, gingerly. Kenz was ok with it. She didn't say anything about getting another one.

But we have to make our third annual  GINGERBREAD HOUSE.  Soon. Tradition.

This crocheted tree is another traditon. I have been putting it up for probably twenty years