Gingerbread 2025

Well, Gingerbread Weekend 2025 has come and gone. 

And it was one for the record books. 

This was the first year we'd ever really had a plan. We bought all the supplies. On Friday, I went to the Dollar Tree and did the candy run. Things were looking up. 

We had a mandatory family movie night (they're all madatory, but due to NCYC, Thanksgiving, and the play last week, we haven't had a real one in a while.) We watched the Jonas Brothers Christmas movie. I thought it was delightful! And it was exactly the low-key night we all needed. 

Then Saturday hit with more snow. I cannot, friends. I hate it so much. 

Our actual DOT posted this. Saturday was horrible. My very best friend was trying to return home to her children from Des Moines, and they got stuck on I-80 for hours while it was closed. They saw so many accidents and situations. 

Anyway, after we shoveled, we got to work on the gingerbread houses. The kids ROCKED it. 

M went with this blue theme. Which turned out super cute! She was SO proud of her shingles and I think she did such a nice job! 

C went to town and added allllllll the candy he enjoys. He is the only one who will systematically destroy his house by picking at the candies to eat them. I think my favorite part of his house is the Swedish Fish sidewalk. 

Then the grown-ups got started. And we were absolutely destroyed by isomalt. We had been planning on a greenhouse for months. So we bought isomalt and it wouldn't set!!! For giggles I set up 2 walls just to see what would happen... 

The answer is... the isomalt started to drip. Slowly. 

A few hours later it looked like this. 

It was so bad. So we had to rebake the walls. Which meant making more dough. At midnight. 

And then Husband and I each broke a piece. It was the most disastrous of all the gingerbread houses we've made in 13 years of this tradition. 

Luckily, we are pretty adept at this point of gluing things back together with icing and making it work like Tim Gunn used to say. 

And it turned out pretty well. 

But still... this will go down in history as the year isomalt got the best of us. Still the tradition stands and we made it!