Building a Gingerbread House ~ easy for kids, easy on Mom

                                 ~^~^~^~  Merry Christmas  ~^~^~^~  

                      From the land of O Tannenbaum & Gingerbread Houses

Check out how easy it is to make a Gingerbread House out of graham crackers.  My 7 year old had fun decorating his creation. I only made 1/3 of the recipe for the Royal Icing & it was plenty.

The next stop on J's tour of holiday traditions was to Germany ~ the land of                    OTannenbaum & Gingerbread Houses.  His class learned all about how Germany was the first place where decorated trees became a part of Christmas celebrations.  J was surprised to learn that the first Christmas trees were decorated with only cookies, apples, nuts, and sugar sticks.  For the art project, J's class made 3-D trees out of green construction paper to go along with the singing of OTannenbaum.

To keep up the food theme, we decided to make a Gingerbread House, since Germany seems to be where Gingerbread Houses originated.  It's thought that the first Gingerbread Houses where based on the Witch's house, from the Bros. Grimm fairy tale ~ Hansel & Gretel.   To decorate our Gingerbread House, we used all the Halloween candy that J didn't like or that was too stale to eat.  I cheated & used chocolate graham crackers instead of gingerbread.  Chocolate graham crackers are just too easy to use & they have a sugar sprinkle that looks like 'snow'.  What a deal!   I really think making a Gingerbread House is a great way to get rid of all that Halloween candy that is still lurking about.  J had fun building it & it doesn't make him feel like his Mom is making him get rid of his candy.  Cheap, cheerful & candy-cupboard-cleaning, gotta love that!

As they say in Germany ~  Froehliche Weihnachten! (Happy Christmas)