One of my fondest memories of Christmas time growing up is that we would often make and decorate gingerbread houses together. We would generally make 3 or 4 houses and then give them to other families to enjoy. In the last few years we have revisited this, but in a more creative way. Now that we are all grown up, a few of my brothers wanted to try some different gingerbread designs – from a cathedral to an Aussie style farmhouse.
We would spend a while on the planning step, making templates of the different pieces that we needed and then rolling out and cutting the dough. Then started the building process, which came with varying degrees of success.
As we built the cathedral it was successful at first, but the mixture of a few elements, namely the humidity in Far North Queensland and the many components that it takes to make up a dome, along with the added weight of the lollies we were putting on top, meant that partway through the decorating process, we got a spectacular slow-motion collapse of the dome. (But not before we got some pictures of the completed cathedral). We didn’t let that stop us though as we continued decorating, embracing the disaster and creating a storyline to go with it.
As you look at the photo, you can see my brother’s hands holding the cathedral together, and then seconds after the photo the dome collapsed. The second photo shows our finished product, which tells a story of some sort of explosion that happened in the dome resulting in people fleeing the scene, while police cars rush there(see the yellow liquorice) along with a news reporter van and a helicopter (attached to a chopstick which is cropped out of the second image). We had lots of fun with it and were very happy with the final result, despite the setbacks experienced in the middle.
Last year’s gingerbread creation was an Aussie style farmhouse. We had a lot of fun with this one, designing a full wrap around veranda, a windmill in the front yard and even some gingerbread animals scattered around the house. (These were my creation and I was very proud of them!) The cherry on top was a rocking chair sitting on the veranda with someone sitting on it enjoying the view. This creation was a lot more successful, with everything holding together (with the exception of the windmill, which fell apart shortly after we took the photos.
I love how creative my family is and that we get to enjoy making these projects together – I can’t wait to see what we make next time!
The Barefoot Adventurer 