Christmas

Make a Gingerbread House For Family Fun

What a fun wintertime family project making gingerbread houses can be! Make one or several, creating a whole festive scene. Just clear out a space where you can leave them for a while and work on it piece by piece!

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TIP: If you are leaving the houses unattended, guard them from the family pets!

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Blue and yellow Hanukkah gingerbread house

I wish I could tell you that I had a hand in making this but I was at home, preparing our family holiday dessert party, while my daughter, Shannon, granddaughters – Sara, Kenzie, Madalyn, Amelia, Nora – and grand daughters in-law Claire and Nicole were all producing this amazing Gingerbread House Village!

Shannon has a large homeschool classroom at her house that makes such a perfect workspace.

You’ll notice that every edifice is made of baked gingerbread, not graham crackers. This took much time and care. Claire and her family have traditionally made gingerbread houses every year. The one pictured below earned them 2nd place in a big contest!

Claire’s award-winning Gingerbread Bakery!

I love the ingenuity that goes into every design. Nicole added a pretty blue pond made from melted blue Starburst candies (pictured below.) There are so many fun details you can include – just use your imagination!

Besides the obvious – gingerbread – craft and decorate your houses with gum drops, colored candies such as Necco wafers (they make great shingles on a roof) and just about any candy that has a reasonably long shelf life.

Royal icing is excellent mortar to hold the walls together and it makes beautiful decorations, as well! There are many recipes for gingerbread houses. Try this one from Food Network, which also includes instructions for making royal icing – GINGERBREAD HOUSE RECIPES and INSTRUCTIONS .

Here is a video montage of amazing Gingerbread Houses that you will love.
~If you are viewing this by email, just click on the title and come over to my blog to view it.~

Take a look at this gorgeous blue Gingerbread House for Hanukkah. Isn’t it pretty?

Finally, let’s take one more look at our family’s holiday village. Next year, I fully intend to be in on the fun!

Have you ever made a gingerbread house? Got any cute ideas we can try?

Personalized Gingerbread House Ornaments make great gifts!

personalized gingerbread houses on Amazon

12 styles to choose from!

Family Fun? Make a Gingerbread House!

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Enjoy!

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Christmas Blessings to One and All

7 Ways to Make Lasting Holiday Memories

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The holidays all come with expectations.

We expect to make and eat lots of great food.
We expect to give and receive gifts.
We expect a certain amount of stress (some more than others) and its consequential fatigue.
We expect the budget to scream a little bit from the weight of all the “necessary” expenditures.

But do we expect to come away with tender loving memories? The holidays are really about being thankful for our blessings. They are about family and friends. We enjoy the holidays so much more when we create an atmosphere from which memories are birthed.

So, what do those memories look like? My recollections bring a picture of my “Grampy” dressed in his holiday vest. It was red plaid. With his thick white hair and happy eyes, he looked so regal. I can still see him carving the turkey at the head of the beautifully decorated dining room table. My dad continued the vest tradition where Grampy left off. Though there were so many great traditions about our family holidays, that one dominates my warmest thoughts.

Funny memories? My dear husband broke a tooth on his mom’s Thanksgiving turkey! It had been left in the oven way too long. She felt so bad about it. But we laughed. Chipping a tooth is no fun but it stayed a humorous memory that she got teased about for years. She was such a good sport (and to set the record straight, a very good cook.)

Oh yes, and in my family it was the Christmas tree that would fall over in the middle of the night. The trunk was crooked and it just didn’t want to stand up! Each morning we’d hear “Oh, no!” and one of my parents would “right” it again, decorations getting shabbier as time went on.

Child decorating Christmas tree; baby santa

So, think about creating some great family memories!

Sights: Make everything beautiful. A vision of “Christmas” typically includes twinkling lights on an evergreen tree. Add to it candles in the window and on the table, stockings hung over the fireplace “with care” and beautiful wrapped presents.

Engage your family in a series of “decorating moments.” Start the process now, pre-Thanksgiving, and have fun with it till the New Year begins. Decorating doesn’t have to happen in one day. Enjoy it as you string it along.

Sounds: Fill the air with music! Holiday music overflows with thanksgiving and joy. Turn on a radio station that plays continuous holiday songs or pop a CD in the player. Keep your home, and car, filled with the sounds of the season and remember to SING along! Engage your kids in singing the catchiest tunes. Everyone’s welcome. Musical talent not required!

Ducks 'n a Row holiday cookies; creating family memories at Christmas

Smells: Bake, Bake, Bake! Holiday food fills your home with a sweet aroma as you bake desserts and roast the turkey. Fond memories of going to grandma’s house have been built around these delicious smells!

Ducks 'n a Row: Holiday memories; family time; #Christmas #Thanksgiving #memories

Touch: Cuddle-time a must! We get so busy that we can forget to spend quality time close together. Everyone needs it: mom, dad, the kids…even the dog! It’s how we get re-charged. Read a storybook together. Snuggly blankets required. Schedule a pajama movie night with a great holiday classic. The menu? Popcorn and hot chocolate, of course.

Team work: Everyone has a part to play. Getting ready for the holidays includes anticipation of good things to come. Everyone should be a part of the preparations. Bake cookies together. Wrap gifts. Dust and pick up “stuff.” Even the littlest tyke can have some kind of job to do – with much praise included. Remember, a two-year old will dust like a two-year old!

Reach Out – who needs you? Your children and spouse need you, of course. Your parents, friends and relatives do, too. But, who else needs you? Is there someone you can think of who has no one at all? What can your family do to show them some love? Teach this giving-spirit to your kids when they’re young and they will reproduce it as adults. The giving spirit is not taught as much as it is “caught”. We all learn by doing.

Embrace the moment. Remember to step back for a moment and appreciate what you have. No matter the struggles and hardships life may bring, there is something you can focus on that says “life is good”. Think on that! And take pictures of these family times for future memories. Make a date with your kids to sit down and put these memories in a scrapbook while they are still fresh!

7 wonderful ways to make memories during the #holidays #family Share on X

Enjoy!

Note: this author is an Amazon affiliate. What does that mean? Well, anything that you buy from Amazon by first clicking on an ad, link or using an Amazon search window on Ducks ‘n a Row will, at no extra cost to you, result in a small commission for me. In advance “thank you!” … Sinea