Deckin' the Halls

I love shortcuts.  I take them whenever I can- because they make my life a little easier.  Not that my life is particularly hard (my husband always likes to point that out), but I love anything that saves me a few minutes.  

That said- I have always bought the little gingerbread house kit at the grocery store or Costco each December, and brought it home for my little gremlins to decorate.  My issue this year was pretty obvious.  The store-bought gingerbread house was a veritable wheat-y, gluten-eous mess that wasn't going to cross the threshold of my door.  Which left me with the following choice:  no gingerbread house/ no funny pictures/ no goofy centerpiece for December or I make one myself.  I shuddered at the thought.  Real gingerbread?  Do I look like Martha Stewart?  

I fired up Google one night and downloaded a PDF for a house design.  And got a gluten free gingerbread recipe from a girlfriend.  I went to the store and bought all the GFree candies I could- then set to work the next morning.  

Things did NOT go to plan.  The roof ended up being WAY too big for the house, and the pitch was WAY too steep.  Two things that did not bode well for our little house.  In fact- maybe we should have taken this as a forewarning of things to come.  I "glued" the house together with royal icing- Shaun didn't think Gorilla Glue was the way to go (though I thought the idea had merit), and improvised the roof issue.  The house now looked as though it had a large hole... but it looked decorate-able.  

I readied the candy...

And we set to work!

Kate soon got bored with the decorating and started chugging candy...

The finished product was gorgeous.  Hansel and Gretel couldn't have asked for a more beautiful piece of candy-front property.  We left the house to dry and I sent the kids downstairs for a shower and to put their pj's on.  By the time they made it back upstairs however... disaster had struck.  

Better luck next year.  :)