Gettin' Sticky

Today we had our annual Christmas get together with our friends, Terry and Lisa, and my sister-in-law, Kath. We all met at Lisa's for brunch, a little gift exchange, and some serious Christmas "work."

Terry and Lisa's house has a large room that includes the family room, kitchen, and informal dining area all in one, so we could all be together while the guys watched football and the gals decorated gingerbread houses.

Lisa has two daughters; one of them is currently living at home, so there were four of us decorating houses. Lisa bought the "pre-fabricated" house kits by Wilton and picked up a TON of extra candy; her daughter mixed up all the icing; and we soon got busy.

Can you tell that is my house in the foreground? I bet those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile can. Why? Because of the Starbucks iced latte, of course! (These are all photos of our houses "in progress" except for the last one.)

Here's my sister-in-law Kath's house. Her house was looking pretty good, but she started having some problems with the icing and getting candy to stick. Don't you just love the peppermint roof though?

Here's Lisa's house--I wanted to show you what she was doing with a porch and roof. Pretty neat! I wouldn't have thought of it! Decorating gingerbread houses is an annual event at Lisa's, so she had been thinking about what she wanted to do to hers for a bit.

Here's Lisa's daughter's house in the foreground (Kath's is in the background). Lisa's daughter graduated from college not too long ago; she majored in one of the architectural fields, so her house had to be quite precise, considering it was gingerbread. In the end, hers turned out the best, I think. I really liked what she did with the green gummy leaves and red hot berries on the side of the house facing the camera.

And finally, here's my finished house in my kitchen hutch.

While we were decorating, Lisa kept having "issues" with the overuse of icing in the pre-fab construction of her house. The funny thing was that when Hubby and I got home and I opened the sliding door of the van, my house fell out onto the street (although it was still inside the box), and the only thing that fell off was one of the roof "tiles." I have to say the over use of icing probably saved it! This is the first time I've decorated a gingerbread house where I hadn't baked the gingerbread and "glued" the house together, and I thought these worked out pretty well! I'd definitely recommend it, and what a fun project for getting together with friends!

Want to know what else I did today? I made more of those nuts I blogged about yesterday! Yep, we stopped at Trader Joe's and picked up two more packages of nuts. They've probably cooled by now, so it's time for me to bag them up. Thanks for stopping by to visit!