New Year's Day Gingerbread Houses

Okay, this is kinda a weird tradition, but at our house, we do our gingerbread houses on New Year's Day. The way this started was a few years ago, after all the fun of Christmas was gone, I was really bummed. The kids were still home from school, but the magic of Christmas was over and everyone was in a funk. So, I went out and bought gingerbread houses, wrapped them, and gave them to the kids to open on New Years Day as their first gift of the new year. Then we build, decorated, and nibbled on them all day.

The only problem with the old-school gingerbread houses for kids is they are a PAIN to build and keep together. Ours kept caving in, or a wall would fall inside the rest of the house... it was FRUSTRATING. One year we even hot glued the houses together, then frosted and decorated them.

Well, this year, as I was roaming JoAnn, I found bunt pans in the shape of a gingerbread house and one in the shape of a train. Score! I bought cake mix and frosting for each kid and they helped make the cake, bake it, and then decorate it. It worked out so much better for us. Plus, cake is really so much tastier than gingerbread cardboard, right?! No tears this year!

Brooklyn took this very serious. She decorated her train, the plate it was sitting on, and added some awesome features like rail road tracks and a pond... 

Kendall loaded her house up with all sorts of candy - and ate a good amount of it, too... 

I realized, as we were trying to get Hudson to taste some of his train, that this boy DOES NOT like cake. Remember his first birthday? He wouldn't even touch the cake with his hands, let alone put some in his mouth. Once I showed him how to smear on the frosting and add the candy, he did some himself for a little while, then totally lost interest. He did enjoy eating the candy though... 

So, did anyone else spend most of the holiday vacation in their pajamas like the kids and I did? It was too cold to go outside, so what was the point in getting dress, right? Who doesn't love a pajama day... or two... or three... or four...

Yes, Hudson, it's supposed to go on your train, not in your mouth...

 Kendall is also very fond of eating her house... 

But the final product turned out so great...

The details on Ella's, which unfortunately you can't see, were amazing. There were tiny little candy lights around each window, candy lights around the roof, christmas candy lights on the trees. It was awesome!... 

Brooklyn was totally thinking outside of the box on hers. She's got the fish pond in the center, with fish inside, grass and "stones" surrounding that, and then train tracks going around the outer edge of the plate. Brilliant Brooklyn!... 

A close-up of the finished product...