Gingerbread House

The last time I hadn't posted for this long, I was studying and I was eating leftovers, and thus not cooking.  I have no such excuses this time.  I have been busy with Christmasy stuff.  I guess this is what happens when you have one week to cram in shopping, baking, bell ringing, caroling, gingerbread houses, cookies and wrapping!  And when you're starting to learn how to balance two families at Christmastime.

I kind of feel like a grad student this morning.  Well, I am one, but like more of one.  I got up early this morning.  Not to study, not to do homework, no, but to make Christmas presents.  Nothing like leaving them to the last minute.  Oh well.  I can sleep later.

Anyway, one of my Christmas festivities this week was building my annual gingerbread house with dad.  We have made a gingerbread house every year for as long as I remember, and this year, dad even made the panels!

Like last year, we got a Dancing Deer Baking Co. house kit, and silly me, I didn't realize it only came with small cookies for "shingling".  The box was supposed to be covered in frosting to be the house.  We weren't impressed.

So, while I was busy waiting for bread to rise -- another story for another day -- he made the panels.

He's so good at things like that.  And this year, there weren't even any problems with panels breaking or anything.  It went together really well.

We had leftover dough, so we made some cookies, too.  But they are pretty hard for gingerbread.  Oh well, they taste good and smell amazing.

And the other thing about having all these extra cookies and cookie shingles was that it meant this gingerbread house was much more covered in gingerbread than candy.

The peanut butter M&Ms sitting on the counter were originally for decorating . . . but they ended up being more for eating, seeing as we never put any on the house.

And we even have our family,

our puppy,

and playful neighbor children and dog around the house.

And Gollum.  I'm not quite sure how he invaded this Christmasy scene.  (See the character with green eyes on the front corner of the house)

Anyway, we had fun with the cookies, too.

There are even some mathematical constants hanging around in there somewhere.  I wonder who could have made those.

Me?  You really think so?

And now, after a wonderful mini-Christmas with the S family and NES, it's time to jump into family Christmas festivities.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas, and that little Baby born in Bethlehem so many, many years ago may be the center of your thoughts this Christmas day.