A house of bread and ginger.

Every year, for the past few years, I've made a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. It's so much fun coming up with a design chosing candy decorations! I've decided to make it a tradition to make a gingerbread house from scratch every year. 



Here is my "MINI Garage" from 2008, complete with gingerbread crumb driveway and snowman.

Here's my retro, mid-century house from last year, complete with sugar windows and color-changing lighted interior! The windows were tricky, but not as difficult as you might think.  I used Juicy Fruit gum for the siding, Junior Mints for the chimney, and Lifesavers and Skittles for the roof. And, of course, there's a MINI in the driveway. I was thinking I'd do something along those lines this year, but I wasn't sure what my "inspiration house" was going to be. Then I saw the cover of the current Sunset Magazine: 



(photo from the Sunset Magazine website) 

I must do something on stilts! My sister, Annie had the idea to use chocolate-covered pretzel sticks for the supports. Sounds effective and delicious! I'm still working on the design sketches, but I'll post project photos here when it's all done. I will begin construction on Thursday, so stay tuned!