Making Ginger Bread Houses is a great Christmas tradition...just not one for me. I love the idea. What's not to love...eatible houses covered in frosting and candy...Yum! The trouble is the ginger bread. Have you ever tried working with that stuff? First, you have to have the perfect recipe. Then you have to cut your house pieces EXACTLY right. Then bake them the right amount of time to get the correct firmness. Then comes the fun part...trying to get the pieces to stand up and stay standing up with all the decorations on top. I guess I just don't have the patience or talent for it. The last time I tried, at Enrichment several years ago, my roof pieces didn't quite meet at the top. I decided it would be a sun roof. The sister teaching the class was appalled that I would leave it that way. What can I say...I am not a perfectionist.
My parents had the right idea. We made Christmas trains out of graham crackers when we were kids. Same idea...glue it all together with frosting and decorate with candy. You just didn't have to deal with ginger bread...that was the key. Yeah, we had a lot of broken crackers, but who cares...it's a broken cracker!
Fast forward to 2008 and my attempt at starting fun Christmas traditions for my kids. I decided that I would take any chance out of the equation. We made rice crispy treat houses. I would say they can't fail, but you just have to look at the pictures to see that the roof presents a bit of a challenge. My friend, Eimile, and I got together with our kids last week to make houses. We made the kids' houses first, so we learned from our mistakes. The roofs were a bit heavy to withstand all the frosting and candy and eventually became flat. I think a flat roof is perfectly acceptable. After all, the house I grew up in had a flat roof.
Kelsie couldn't care less that her roof was flat. In fact, the only reason there is even any frosting on her house is because I helped her put a knife-full on. The rest went straight into her mouth. I think she finally got a few pieces of candy on the top too...the ones she didn't like very much.
My parents had the right idea. We made Christmas trains out of graham crackers when we were kids. Same idea...glue it all together with frosting and decorate with candy. You just didn't have to deal with ginger bread...that was the key. Yeah, we had a lot of broken crackers, but who cares...it's a broken cracker!
Fast forward to 2008 and my attempt at starting fun Christmas traditions for my kids. I decided that I would take any chance out of the equation. We made rice crispy treat houses. I would say they can't fail, but you just have to look at the pictures to see that the roof presents a bit of a challenge. My friend, Eimile, and I got together with our kids last week to make houses. We made the kids' houses first, so we learned from our mistakes. The roofs were a bit heavy to withstand all the frosting and candy and eventually became flat. I think a flat roof is perfectly acceptable. After all, the house I grew up in had a flat roof.
Kelsie couldn't care less that her roof was flat. In fact, the only reason there is even any frosting on her house is because I helped her put a knife-full on. The rest went straight into her mouth. I think she finally got a few pieces of candy on the top too...the ones she didn't like very much.
Tyson, on the other hand, really struggled when his roof came down. He kept saying, "It's not perfect...it's not good enough." I tried to explain that it was my fault the roof fell down, not his, but he wouldn't listen. Once again, we have been traumatized by a Christmas tradition gone bad (Letter to Santa didn't go too well last year). I think this one can be remedied next year though with a little more stable construction.
I cheated a bit with my house after seeing all the roofs collapse on the kids' houses. My roof had a little cardboard and a couple of chop sticks to help it maintin its shape. Anyway, the point is...rice crispy treats are the way to go. If you want it to keep it even simpler, buy the ones from the store and cut them into bricks for your house. They are the perfect consistency for building. And they taste way better than stale ginger bread. We used a combination of homemade and store bought on ours. I think we have found a new tradition for the Rigby family. We will never do anything but Rice Crispy houses from now on!
2 comments:
Adorable. Very sorry that I missed it. WE will definetly join in next year. We were going to make gingerbread houses as a family tomorrow but now I am scared!
Guess what you're teaching for Super Saturday next year? Very cute!
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