Decorating a Gingerbread House

The other day I was having quite a stressful day....you know one of those days when things just don't go your way....the whole day!!!!!!  Health insurance, Post Office, nowhere to park etc etc need I say more?

So I thought when my little girl gets home from school we'll put on some Christmas music (even though they are Jewish they want to expose her to all religions) and we'll make a Gingerbread House....a happy stress free time! 

I don't have enough free time anymore to make the gingerbread from scratch so I relied on good old Wilton with their kits (I think it cost me $8 at Michaels)

So we got straight to assembling the house

The decorating of the house is the happy stress free time but the assembly of the house....not so much!  The walls caved in because we held it too tight, the roof slipped down because we didn't hold it long enough!  And then you have to wait for it to harden overnight so no decorating the first day!!!  BORING!
I spoke to one of my best nanny friends who agreed with me that the whole thing is really quite stressful and we blamed it on the quality of the icing.  She told me that she got so fed up one year that she got the glue gun out!
I thought that was hilarious! 

This was my overnight solution.  Salt pots, held up with more salt at one side and a large potato at the other

The next day was a little happier and easier......decorating and eating candy!

Making a Christmas tree from fondant

Icing the roof - aka the easiest part of the whole thing

Yes we had one of those incidents where the icing comes out the wrong end of the bag.  I solved this problem by tying an elastic band around the top of the bag.

FINALLY it was all worth it!