Holiday Parties

This post was started Saturday night...Well, tomorrow is the big day, the annual Gingerbread House Party. I started having these when our youngest was in junior high school, that first party was a disaster. I had invited about 15 girls and spent days making the walls to the gingerbread houses. The day of the party the idea was that the girls would assemble their house and then decorate it. I don't know what I was thinking because the royal frosting, which is the glue, needed to have time to set up. The houses sagged and swayed, to and fro, from the weight of the candy. We ended up using real glue, toothpicks, pins, whatever worked to hold the creation together. Needless to say, the houses were inedible. So I learned to either make them earlier, nah, or get a local bakery to do them for me. That is what I did and now I call the order in and pick up perfect little fresh gingerbread houses to decorate. They each get their own box and cardboard base too! The cost is well worth the time and energy that can now be diverted to decorating! As I sit typing this entry into my blog the house is full of the aroma of gingerbread.
STOP
Well I had to stop there and finish up for the party and we were expected at my brothers for dinner. I had to quickly clean up and leave, when we got back home I opened the front door and was overwhelmed by a horrible odor! My daughter had left the dog locked in her bathroom and the dog was sick and practically covered the floor with doggy diarrhea!!! AHHHHH, the wonderful smell of gingerbread GONE, and for the next 45 minutes I cleaned and cleaned and opened up the house even with the temperature at a chilly 30 degrees. We finished about 1:00 am and closed everything back up and tried to get warm. Some days I hate that little dog, this must be what causes the Bah, Humbugs! But the next day everything was back to smelling Christmasy and the party was a wonderful success. We had about 36 kids and adults here all crammed into my livingroom, laughing and decorating their beautiful houses. Its so much fun to see the kids faces when they see all the candy. It was a lot of work but so much fun, its really feels like Christmas with the house full of friends and family having fun together. Enjoy the pictures.