Sunday, December 1, 2013

And so it begins.

The real count down until Christmas.  It's exhausting but in a fun way.  The stores will be crowded, the roadways busy, the house will feel cluttered with all the holiday prep, and I'll feel like a kitchen slave some days.

However, everything is bright and festive.  People are generally upbeat.  The stores will be decorated, full of bargains, and there is music everywhere.  I will never be tired of hearing Karen Carpenter sing, seeing houses lit with Christmas lights, or the air of giving that seeps into every organization I'm involved with.

Traditions probably rule our holiday season more than anything.  Sometimes we celebrate in a certain way just because that's what we've always done but every now and then a new traditions is born. 
This year on Black Friday instead of battling crowds we gave gingerbread houses a try.  We are total novices.  Besides sticking some graham crackers to the sides of a milk carton in Girl Scouts we have NO experience. 

I found kits online through King Arthur's website.  There are a variety of pre made kits available but I liked these because they came with some candies, a frosting mix, and the house parts were stamped with some design elements.  I bought cake bases to work on. 


I liked the pre shaped shingles.  I used some spray glue to make snow flake sprinkles stick.


Buttercup went for a lakeside cottage look. 


The Scholar has summer camp on the brain.  She made a cute camp fire. 

 
If we decide this is something we want to try again next year I think I'll buy the kits that come with a house already constructed.  Making that roof stay on was not fun.   



I suppose if we still had cats, we'd have a harder time keeping them out on display. 

An interesting 'twist' in photo uploading....even if I've rotated a photo before uploading it to my computer, it uploads into Blogger sideways.  Why?  Why do we need another glitch that can't be overcome?  Or can it.  Does anyone know how to rotate the photo on Blogger?? 

24 days!

Pam


8 comments:

  1. Sweet! ;)
    I have no idea about the sideways pictures. I don't need that problem!!

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  2. They look great!! Sorry, no idea on the pics...hope someone can help!

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  3. What great houses - and memories - you've made. It had to be a lot more fun than fighting the shopping crowds.

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  4. Your houses turned out great! I have no idea on the sideways picture problem, it has happened to me as well.

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  5. Cute houses! If your photo turns out sideways on Blogger, sometimes you need to close down your browser and close down your photo program, then reopen. Mine will do that sometimes if I upload photos to my computer more than once during a day. If I close everything and restart, it will usually pick it up correctly. :) Hope that helps!

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  6. Gingerbread houses turned out great. Fun to see the different designs and decorations. What a fun way to spend some time together.

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  7. We've made gingerbread houses a couple of times in the past. I actually made all the gingerbread once. A lot of work! I hated throwing them away after Christmas...it made me sad. I just was looking at the King Arthur website. Lots of nice stuff!

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  8. Oh, what fun! I could never get my sons to sit and decorated one of those with me (well, maybe when they were five!). Can you eat them afterward?

    I've not had a problem with blogger turning photos... I use Firefox and it seems to help me avoid many of the problems people have with blogspot.

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