Gingerbread Houses

My family started the tradition of making Gingerbread houses when we were all a bit older... like high school age. I remember all of us trying to be creative and having so much fun creating the perfect gingerbread cottages. We'd always looked forward to the huge array of candy and thinking of just the perfect use for each piece...

We've kept the tradition going and each year since then we have a little family get together and decorate houses...
This year since Julie was in town (and we can never have enough parties to celebrate that!) we decided instead of having a LITTLE get together that we'd make it a big party for all of our extended family too! Everyone came over and we started with dinner...
Soups, breads, crackers, cheese, relish tray.... It was delicious and then came the decorating!...

Julie came over earlier in the day and I put her and Glen to work on the building of the houses... 19 little houses to be exact... gingerbread??? are you kidding... Graham crackers are much easier to work with... and there were not even too many bad words used due to the occasional hot glue gun singe!!
That's 18 houses plus this one mansion...
This man is full of surprises... his skills are endless!!

Hard at work...

Gabe was so excited to see all the candy...

and although Ruby looks very dainty... placing ONE little piece of candy carefully on her tongue... this is not really how it went... she and Gabe shoveled in candy by the handfuls and were sticky, dirty messes before we were even half way done!!

any guesses who this house belongs to ??

That would be Eli our candy man!! I have no idea how he got all of that candy to stick and how on earth is that little house still standing under all that weight?

Evan meticulously placed each piece... everything he does is thought out and then moved around if needed...until it's just perfect to him!

It was fun to watch how each little house came together... the kids had a great time! Usually our houses sit on the counter for about a week... driving me crazy, as they get picked on by my boys. until finally they look broken and gross and I just have to throw them out. This year was great because they decided with the help of Ruby to eat them (avoiding the glue as much as possible) while we watched the broadcast of the LDS Christmas devotional which was on TV the very the next day! Creating gingerbread houses is one of my favorite family holiday traditions and it was so fun to have most of our family here to share it with!