Gingerbread Day

The other day my girls and I wandered into the lobby of The Four Seasons Hotel here in Austin to see their annual Gingerbread Village display.  (a little awkwardly, I might add.  It's usually apparent enough that we don't belong at The Four Seasons, but it happened to be pouring rain that day, and we looked particularly bedraggled and dripping down mud.  But- oh well...if they are going to display fancy candy houses, they're going to have to expect a little preschool riff raff :-)

This year they are displaying replicas of Austin landmarks.  We even got to see a gingerbread version of the hospital where I'll be delivering little baby J in a week or two.

It was fun to look, but I realized that the whole experience was a bit of a tease for the girls when M turned to me and said, "NOW, can we eat them?"

Thankfully, I had previously frittered away invested some time on Pinterest looking at holiday ideas, and remembered a pin for a site with instructions for making super easy graham cracker gingerbread houses.  It seemed that the next logical thing to do was to stop off at HEB for some graham crackers and candy.

The bulk candy aisles were particularly fun because we were able to purchase just a few pieces of a big variety of little candies.

While the girls napped, I set to work constructing the graham cracker houses.  The site from Pinterest really has amazingly good and detailed instructions.  I was especially thankful for her suggestion to use melted chocolate instead of the royal icing I would have used as a default.  Royal icing takes a lot longer to dry and so leaves the little house pretty susceptible to collapse for a couple of hours.  The melted chocolate dried quickly and solid.

The only real trouble I had was in making sure I had enough graham crackers.  When I opened the package I found that half of the crackers were broken.  (may have had something to do with the fact that little G was in the basket with them at the grocery store) In the end, I was able to salvage enough for two little houses.

It looks a little messy, but white melted chocolate looks enough like snow and icicles; so in the end I was happy with them.  And, of course,  the girls thought they were amazing!

Decorating the little houses was an absolute dream come true for them.  They spent over an hour intently decorating, and then only stopped because I made them get washed up for dinner.  For the candy decorating we did use royal icing.  It would have been hard for them to decorate fast enough before the chocolate hardened.

It was a great day, and I'm excited to continue the gingerbread tradition next year.  Of course, the massive amounts of candy are a bit troubling, but we've been eating them slowly, one piece at a time (as rewards for potty training)  Still, it would be fun to come up with a healthier version of a gingerbread house...maybe with dried fruit, etc.  Or would that take all the fun out of it?

 I think it might be fun to host a gingerbread house decorating party next year.  Have any of you done that?  Any tips?   Any fun books to go along with the activity?  (I considered Hansel and Gretel, but the part about throwing the witch into the oven always makes it a bit of a disturbing story to me :-)   
 
It would be great to get other suggestions!