Gingerbread house decorating

Every year I take a day and design, bake and asseble two (yes, two!) gingerberad houses. Each year I try and make them smaller than the last year, and each year I fail. This year the houses were 18 inches by 24 inches! This is why I am not a structural engineer!

I also make the mistake of trying to create and assemble them on the same day as we are going to decorate them. It has never been a problem in the past, but I am always concerned at how sturdy they are. I always vow that next year I will make them the day before, and every year I do not. I always make the gingerbread from scratch and it is delicious, so I also have been afraid that it will taste stale if I make them too far in advance. So far my crazy method has worked. We have been doing this for 13 years!

So, this year we invited James' sister and her family over to decorate the second house. We were all having a great time. There were candies and icing flying everywhere as the houses were

decorated and looking wonderfully and deliciously beautiful. Christmas carols were playing cheerfully in the background.

Then Victoria decided to take a larger candy (a fruit slide gummy for those of you who know what those are) and firmly press it onto the lower edge of the side wall. Well, the icing had not set and the wall caved in completely!! I tried to take a picture of the house before it all caved in, but

alas it went too quickly!

All the pieces caved in on each other and the candies flew in all directions!!

But all was not lost! Now we could unabashedly dive into our house and start eating the candies and the gingerbead without any reaservation!! The gingerbread was delicious and the icing was buttercream (real butter!!). We pigged out! It was GREAT!