Building a house

I took the easy way out. I bought my boys a cheap gingerbread house kit instead of making one from scratch.

To be honest, I've never actually baked a gingerbread house. I thought a kit was a good first introductory step. (We' did make little ones out of graham crackers with cousins one Christmas. Now that was taking the easy way out, lol.)


The instructions (replete with typos, BTW) said to decorate the walls and roof before they were assembled. It was supposed to be easier. As it was, I had to pipe the icing where the boys and their friend wanted it. They basically globbed on the icing willy-nilly.


What candy they didn't eat, went on the house. I'm not sure if it falls under "you get what you pay for" but the candy was quite stale. They broke one of the walls taking it out of the box, so the interior needed a bit of support. We also forgot to let the decorating icing harden before attempting to assemble it and needed to go back with reinforcing.


Same thing happened when we tried to out the roof on before the sides had the chance to dry. That broken wall was my downfall, I tell ya. It would've been so much more structurally sound if that hadn't been damaged.


A few hours later, the icing and candy were used up and we had a completely decorated -- and dried -- house. I think it lasted a few more hours before they decided to eat the gingerbread men.


Natalie uses a to glue gun for assembling her gingerbread houses. I'm thinking that is a good idea for next year. Less chance of pieces being lost due to improper drying techniques and little fingers. The gingerbread man might not lose his eyes next time.