This year I had the brilliant idea to make gingerbread houses from scratch. I found what looked like an easy recipe and waited until the girls got home from school to make them. It turns out it was not so easy and it took a loooong time to get the dough kneaded and ready for baking. After baking there was a lot of pieces breaking as the dough had been a bit dry and cracked. Then, never having done this before I didn’t know the icing was super runny. Apparently runny icing really glues it together. Well, we did not have an easy way to apply this runny icing and it dripped everywhere. 3 hours later I think they were done. I will admit the baked dough tasted great. Maybe next year I will either make gingerbread cookies with this recipe instead, or maybe look for a new recipe that is more easy to work with. The kids were most patient through it all and promptly ate their houses up.
Kayla picked out our tree this year at the school tree lot and Tim and the girls decorated it. They did great. So I got out our stockings and found the old german choir figures from my mother. (Thanks mom!) Julia wanted to put them out this year and helped me set them up.
The girls wanted to visit Santa this year. We found out he was going to be at a coffee shop near the school one evening, so we went to talk with him there. Julia brought her snow globe with her photo with Santa from last year for him to see. He enjoyed that very much. It was a short, quiet visit but he sang them a carol or two and they got to tell him their wishes.