We’re in the final countdown, boys and girls! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s LESS than 10 days until Christmas. Are you ready? I’m woefully behind (as always), but I’m not hosting our Christmas soiree this year, so I can relax about it. On our off years, we don’t do a big tree, so I’m going to try and decorate a little one this afternoon. Shopping still needs a lot of work — I went to target last week and picked up a few rolls of wrapping paper, but I don’t remember carrying them into the house, so I’m thinking I left them there. {Sigh}. I’ll have to get that worked out this afternoon too.
In the meantime, I finally had a little time to sit down and sort through pictures from the annual Gingerbread House Competition. I was looking back on the blog — it seems we missed the last two years — {Gasp!} It’s almost impossible to get all the kids together these days, now that they’re older, but we had them all here on Thanksgiving this year. We decorated the houses on Thanksgiving Eve, and everyone was here except for TheSecondChild. We thought he’d be with us, but at the last minute, he was offered the option to work on the Friday after Thanksgiving or work late on Thanksgiving Eve and have Friday off, so he opted for the latter. We missed him terribly while doing the houses, but we gained an extra day with him, so it was all good!
I’ll start off by saying, the pictures are AWFUL this year. ;-( The light wasn’t the best this time around, so I cranked up the ISO on my camera and went too far and overexposed everything. I’ve tried to tone them down a little on the computer so that some of the details would show, and it’s resulted in really blurry pictures. Plus, I missed all the cute little details on a lot of the houses and we ran out of time — some of us definitely wanted to add more details to our houses. Oh well, the important thing is that we have a record of the houses so we can remember how much fun we had!
This was our first year with FinallyAGirl and it was so fun. She didn’t really get the decorating idea though, and was a lot more interested in eating the frosting. Poor SweetiePie would pipe a beautiful line of frosting and FinallyAGirl would stick her finger in it. There were a lot of jokes implying that if you wanted to sabotage the competition, just send FinallyAGirl to the other team to “help” LOL.
First up, is the team of CuteNephew and his girlfriend. They went with the theme of all these states that are now legalizing marijuana and made themselves a little pot plantation. Everything in green. Naughty Naughty.
Team 2 was CuteNiece2 and her boyfriend. They were also casual and did a beach scene with a tiki hut. Very clever use of colored frosting on all those surfboards. And don’t miss all the nude sunbathers.
Team 3 was CuteNiece1 and her fiancee. (Yes! We have an engagement — very exciting!) These two are lovingly referred to as our resident hippies and they came through with a bohemian village. They spent lots of time on all of the little details — I love the little campfire and the “bead” doorway into the house, or tent, or cardboard box LOL.
And then we have Team 4 — MyDadLovesMeBestSister and CrazyBIL. This is the second year that CrazyBIL has forgotten what he did in previous years and repeated a theme. We caught him last time and he changed his theme (which resulted in a partially unbloggable house), but we were all so busy this year that it was too late by the time we saw his house. So, this is the second rendition of Trump’s wall. Interesting though, ’cause it’s very different than the last version. I love their clever use of pretzels this year! I’ll let you decide if they’re supportive of the wall or making fun of it LOL.
Team5 was TheFirstChild, SweetiePie and FinallyAGirl. They decided to go with a traditional candy house with a red and white theme. SweetiePie does such pretty frosting work. Plus — Santa!!!
TheManoftheHouse and I made a pirate ship. One of the friends who has been with us at the competition in previous years has thrown all caution to the wind, quit his job, and is sailing around the carribean. He’s having a great time and now actually looks like a pirate with a full-grown scruffy beard. So, our house was an ode to his voyage. The roof is our attempt at the rough blue sea.
It was fun to put the mast on top of the house — there were a few nay-sayers in the crowd when I piped the roping LOL.
As is our custom, we voted for the winner. Do you think my favorite traditional gingerbread house won???
Noooo. It was those crazy kids and their Tiki House. Apparently everyone is dreaming of an island vacation – maybe Santa should re-think his gift list this year!
There you have it!!! Another year in the books. Have fun this week with your final Christmas prep!
XOXO,
Anna
what a lot of ideas you all come up with ! I’m sorry you left your wrapping paper at the store don’t you hate it when that happens. I went and didn’t check my receipt the other day and had presents wrapped only to find out when I glanced at the receipt later that I was charged way too much for embroidery thread that I had picked up, of course by then the bag was tossed, embroidery thread had been partially used and it wasn’t worth it to run back and try to get my money back – I wasn’t exactly real close to the store either!
Such a lot of stickiness! But lovely. Doesn’t FinalllyAGirl look like her mommy in that picture?
Oh Anna, I’ve missed your gingerbread house posts!! It looks like you guys have sooo much fun. Love all the houses, thanks for sharing, and Merry Christmas!
Oh Anna – thank you!! I luuuuurve these posts. They have to be my favourite every time. What a great competition and congrats to all and especially the winners. FinallyAGirl is so cute and I don’t blame her one bit for sticking her finger in the icing! Thank you for a fabulous post.
What fun and it seems your ginger bread houses get every year a bit more outlandish and more in numbers too. I think I have to go with the “Mace America Great Again including wall” as it seems to me it’s made with tongue in cheek. Happy Christmas Anna and enjoy the season (and don’t get too stressed, it will all come together in the end, it always does). xx
make not mace ;)!
those all turned out wonderfully. I have to agree with Tiki House as the winner. ;p
I look forward to the photos of the houses all year. I’d have voted for yours!?
what fun! I always enjoy seeing the big competition! I give everyone a blue ribbon.
The 420 house, lol!!
the wall? no comment…..
Your pirate ship is fun and of course what a sweet sweet photo of finallyagirl
I could see the details just fine and they’re all really fun looking and creative! Hope you have a lovely relaxing holiday.
What brilliant fun and each one so unique and inventive. Thanks for sharing the photos. I think I might have voted for your pirate ship on the strength of that mast alone!
Oh what fun it is too… How about a gingerbread dollhouse for next year?
I got a kick out of the 4:20 house! No roof so the smoke can go up? And the sun can shine on the plants?
Love the beach house too, but the traditional GB House is so cute and your pirate Ship house is very creative. Love the Make America Great Again house too. EVERYONE’S a winner!
Do you bake all of the gingerbread or buy it? The tiny gingerbread guys too? So fun.