Today was gingerbread day and to completely honest, I was ridiculously excited. I think the kids were all excited as well. Even the “big boys” were anxious to get going. One of the things that has prevented me from committing to real gingerbread houses in the past is the fact that royal icing is not Matthew friendly. It’s that whole egg thing. And while buttercream is much tastier, it doesn’t have the holding power of royal icing. But I was determined to at least try to make a stable cookie house, so I searched Pinterest and found several egg-free varieties of royal icing. I selected one and figured if it didn’t work, we could fall back on the less stable buttercream and at least have an entertaining time attempting to make our houses stand. And if they fell down, we could just attribute it to a Christmas earthquake. And no matter what they looked like, they would taste good.
I have a weakness for cute sprinkles and candy eyes because they mesh well with my love of fun food, so we had a bunch of different options to work with. We also purchased several kinds of candy to use as décor and had some buttercream on hand just in case. Once I set the kids loose, the creativity (and the icing) began to flow. And guess what? The egg-less royal icing worked great! It set up hard, but not so hard you would crack a tooth attempting to eat it, which just happens to be one of my pet peeves about normal royal icing. I want my caloric delights to taste as amazing as they look. I mean, isn’t that the point of dessert? To taste good?
We had a wonderful time assembling our creations. And we made a lovely mess. And once we were done, the photoshoot started. During and after the decorating process, I took the requisite blogworthy pictures of each child with their creations, but Daniel went all out while I was cleaning up. We dug out a white sheet for a backdrop, Nathan helped him hold it up, and he went to town. There were pictures of every house from every angle. There were closeups and long shots. There were shots highlighting the wreaths, the Christmas trees, and the candy cane gardens. There were even a few shots of Lego Harry Potter and Lego Cho Chang taking a stroll through the snowy neighborhood. In short, he had a fantastic time making a pictorial record of our day’s work.
I loved today. It was amazingly fun. And being with my most important people in the world made it even better. We’ve all had a rough year but taking time for some whimsy and letting ourselves find joy in the simple things was yet another tender mercy. There is good to be found all around us. And even in an abnormal time, there is normalcy in gingerbread, frosting, and family.
I have a weakness for cute sprinkles and candy eyes because they mesh well with my love of fun food, so we had a bunch of different options to work with. We also purchased several kinds of candy to use as décor and had some buttercream on hand just in case. Once I set the kids loose, the creativity (and the icing) began to flow. And guess what? The egg-less royal icing worked great! It set up hard, but not so hard you would crack a tooth attempting to eat it, which just happens to be one of my pet peeves about normal royal icing. I want my caloric delights to taste as amazing as they look. I mean, isn’t that the point of dessert? To taste good?
We had a wonderful time assembling our creations. And we made a lovely mess. And once we were done, the photoshoot started. During and after the decorating process, I took the requisite blogworthy pictures of each child with their creations, but Daniel went all out while I was cleaning up. We dug out a white sheet for a backdrop, Nathan helped him hold it up, and he went to town. There were pictures of every house from every angle. There were closeups and long shots. There were shots highlighting the wreaths, the Christmas trees, and the candy cane gardens. There were even a few shots of Lego Harry Potter and Lego Cho Chang taking a stroll through the snowy neighborhood. In short, he had a fantastic time making a pictorial record of our day’s work.
I loved today. It was amazingly fun. And being with my most important people in the world made it even better. We’ve all had a rough year but taking time for some whimsy and letting ourselves find joy in the simple things was yet another tender mercy. There is good to be found all around us. And even in an abnormal time, there is normalcy in gingerbread, frosting, and family.
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