Beautiful Gingerbread Houses

As a child, I have awesome memories of my mom taking me to a gingerbread workshop at a local high school. It was a two day event and I remember the large amounts of candy and being so proud of my house!

So I bought tickets for the older girls to go to a gingerbread house event downtown. The tickets were sold out and there was a long waiting list. I was so glad we did this. We invited my mom along, it was her birthday, and we had so much fun and laughed so much. When we arrived to the event, there were secret service men swarming the place. My mom spotted them with their ear pieces and suits. That was really fun for the girls!

When we walked into the ballroom, there were three tables set up with candy buffets. Everything was done SO well (reminded me of Disney.) We were greeted and the girls had the biggest eyes.

They picked their station and stood in front of their already formed houses. They smelled so good, the Christmas music was playing, it was beautiful!

The attendants in the room assisted the girls with their pastry hats and their very own aprons. Every child had an attendant to help them if they needed help.

These are the beautiful Christmas cookies that they served. My favorite is the cardinal. We took two of them for Grace and Rita's school teachers.

I was also very excited about the candy buffets. This is one of the pastry chefs. Her name was Hannah and she was awesome at doing details on the houses. She decorated houses while we did our decorating. We asked her for a lot of help and ideas!

This was how the afternoon began... the attendants dished out all the candy. By the end of the event, kids were running around screaming (too much candy), dishing it out themselves, M&Ms everywhere! My girls were so well behaved, we were so proud of them. They were just staring in disbelief at all the candy... and eating it of course.

They each got three pastry bags full of the type of frosting that hardens after 12 hours. The chefs came and assisted us in different techniques.

This was the Executive Pastry Chef. He told us he was from Bali and they don't celebrate Christmas there too much. It was so funny because my mom said, "are you a Christian?" She misunderstood what he was saying and we got a good laugh out of that. We couldn't understand what he was saying until he explained that Bali is full of tourist and there isn't the "holidays" there. He helped Grace with Christmas Lights on the house, a snowman, a mailbox, a chimney, and my favorite... icicles.

These are the final products. They are truly beautiful. The house is shaped so pretty and the candy is so colorful. The frosting all hardened today and the kids just LOVE them. Grace said she wants to eat it before it was rotten. Rita kepts saying, "I am going to stay away from sweets for a while." What a memorable day!