Gingerbread Crafting!

(Apologies to those few readers of this AND my knitting blog -- this is a duplicate post! It seemed to belong to both worlds....)

Every year I get together with friends and we build a Gingerbread house.  And amazingly - this year was the 20th anniversary of our Gingerbread House tradition.  20 years!  Construction crew members have come and gone - but the core team remains the same.  Me, by very best friend Caroline, her husband Pat, and as they came along her four children, gorgeous goddaughter Genevieve, scrumptuous Suzy, marvelous Mads and luscious little Louis.  This year we were also joined by my good friends Shirlee and John.

In honour of the 20th anniversary, Gen and I devoted a pizza and gossip session to creating this banner.   It's tricky to photograph but we were quite proud of the finished object and forced everyone to gush over it on the day.

The animated version of 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' has been viewed every year, while munching on pizza and waiting for the roof to set - so the theme for this year's house just had to be 'Who-ville'.

For this one instead of baking a single house I cut out and baked the pieces for 9 little houses, in 3 styles.  (I'd used the exact same template from a Good Housekeeping magazine from 1986 for the previous 19 houses.)(I'm nothing if not consistent.)

As I expect most of you know, "All the Who's down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot.  But the Grinch, who lived just north of Who-ville did not."  

At this stage of our story the Who's are enjoying their favourite Christmas tradition - "...all the Who's down in Who-ville, the tall and the small would stand close together with Christmas bells ringing.  They'd stand hand in hand and the Who's would start singing."

And if you look at the back you can see a Who-ville resident who overslept and is joining the singing a little late.

The Who's loved Christmast, but - the Grinch, who lived just north of Who-ville - did not. And he particularly hated the Who singing.

And look, there in his cave in the mountain just north of Who-ville  -- the very green Grinch himself.

He's clearly begun his evil plotting and has put on his fake 'Santy Claus hat and a coat'. Sitting excitedly beside him is loyal dog Max - with the fake antlers attached to his head.

The giant tree and mountain were molded out of rice crispie square mixture. Messy - but fun - and a little tip I picked up last year from Cake Boss. (I think it was Cake Boss. It was a show where some guy made and decorated cakes.)

We had fun using the most colourful icing and sweets to decorate the houses.  The little Who's are all pretty individual - a punk, a bow tie wearing middle aged Who, and a Who based on Madeline (one of my favourite children's books!) are among the little masterpieces.

As usual there was pizza and we watched the Grinch.  There was lots of laughing and singing, some champagne and bags and bags and bags (and bags) of icing sugar.

I expect I won't be blogging again until after Christmas so however you spend it I hope the season brings you peace and joy.