This morning I crawled out of bed reluctantly. Last week was filled with business and I couldn’t make myself start this week at the same pace. I shuffled into the kitchen to start some oatmeal and then curled by the warm fire for a moment. As I took part in an internal debate about whether I should bring my daughter to her once weekly preschool session or stay home, my eldest approached me and suggested we make a gingerbread house. I agreed that it would be the perfect project for today. Our oatmeal was consumed with great haste and we set to work right away. We followed the gingerbread recipe on Simply Recipe’s How to Build a Gingerbread House post and the dough came together well with an additional sprinkle of water. As the dough cooled in the refrigerator we took the opportunity to go to the store and buy candy. My eldest insisted that frogs and worms lived at our gingerbread house so we left the store with some less traditional gingerbread house decorations.

After lunch the dough was rolled out and cut into various shapes. My daughter made some gingerbread men and trees with the leftover dough. As everything baked we whipped together the royal icing, the glue. Sticking the pieces together as my little people were climbing on the table was tricky, to say the least, but as the icing dried the house was solid. Of course, decorating the gingerbread house was the best part, mostly because for every candy you glue to the house you get to eat several. In the end our gingerbread house was covered colourful treats and everyone had sticky fingers and mouths.