A Sweet Home

Welcome to the next of my family's artsy (and therefore completely against my nature) holiday traditions: Gingerbread Houses! Of course this becomes an all-day event, with similar care given to it as the Easter Eggs and Great Pumpkin. One of my aunts has molds for this particular activity, which gingerbread is pressed into to make the pieces of the houses. So it becomes more of a coloring book experience than a starting from scratch one, which is why I can do it. This year my cousins created several spooky, Nightmare Before Chirstmas-like houses, but I was a little more traditional. The favorite decorating addition was a shimmery paint wash.

I maintain that this is the only logical and appropriate use for Necco candy. Well, maybe that and as chalk. But that's it. They are not for eating. They do cut nicely with a razor blade, which B devoted large amounts of his time to for the 'bricks'. Our sparkly little home up there wouldn't be great to eat--we use hot glue to put them together before covering it in frosting--but it turned out pretty darn cute. We didn't go so far as to have working Christmas lights this time. Been there, done that. Ah, but the sparkles made up for it!

We're very much looking forward to our break...we're done in one week! Then it's back to our real jobs (where they pay us, rather than us paying to be tortured) and on to Disneyland. Whew! It's even supposed to snow tomorrow...since we went out without jackets today I suppose that might not be the worst idea. I hate driving in it, but I feel kind of silly drinking hot chocolate when I could be wearing flip flops. Not that it stops me, but I could use a little snow. We honestly haven't had any since early October. Distinctly un-Utah. Not the snow in October, we Trick-or-Treated in snow a lot as kids, but the lack of the white stuff since then. It's ok, though. I'll go to Disneyland where it 'snows' every night.

And they won't look at me funny if I wear my flip flops. They'll just admire the ability of someone to think 65 degrees is toasty warm.