After decorating gingerbread cookies, my kids carry the holiday theme with building a gingerbread village.
GRAHAM CRACKERS SIMPLIFY THE PROCESS
When they were quite young, I found a terrific article in a woman’s magazine about how to easily make gingerbread villages with graham crackers.
While one graham cracker perfectly works for the roof and side walls, simply cutting two other pieces into triangle tops allow for the roofs to slant.
GRUENE GINGERBREAD VILLAGE
When we first moved back to San Antonio when they were 7 and 5, we enjoyed a few trips to one of our favorite places…nearby Gruene!
It’s an early 20th century ghost town that was restored in the 1970s as tourist area for great eating and shopping.
That Christmas we built our first gingerbread village, simply replicating Gruene.
Finding a long piece of cardboard, I covered it with aluminum foil to create a base for the village.
After everything was in place, we placed powdered sugar in a sifter to lightly allow snow to fall on the village.
Placing it on the window seat of the large picture window in the kitchen allows us to enjoy it for a few weeks.
Easily using a table knife, I showed the kids how to cut a gingerbread cracker to accommodate the different parts, secured by powdered sugar icing, then decorated with candies.
We used pretzels for the fences!
We don’t eat it, since it becomes dusty over time.
Thankfully that doesn’t destroy the aesthetics, since it blends in.
After Christmas we just dump everything but the board in the trash.
Since the cardboard is a perfect fit for the window, I easily store it until the next year.
THIS YEAR’S PROJECT
Expanding their creativity, the kids like to work on this project through the remainder of the Christmas season, building on a little here and there through the remaining days.
This year they made a couple of houses, a barn and a silo with a few snowmen.
Since our kitchen has been remodeled, we no longer have the picture window, but now we have a built-in butler’s pantry on the other side of the kitchen, where we showcase this fun holiday display.
So now we have a different cardboard base that we store for future years, after the season is over.
