Christmas 2025: Making Gingerbread Houses

Second Post of the Day

Lisa loves to decorate cookies and cakes. So, of course she likes to decorate gingerbread houses, too. She arrived one day with a house for each of us and a tub (a tub!!) full of icings, sugars, dragees, and assorted candy and we spent that afternoon together working on them.

Well, Craig politely declined and said he'd just watch.

The reality was that we had to watch HIM! LOL

Lisa's Gingerbread House

I honestly did not know she had such talent. I'd gotten a glimpse of it when we decorated the Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve, but in the past we have had so many kids here to decorate them that the adults never really got the chance to sit down and do any without rushing. 

I think she already had a plan for how she wanted to decorate her house because she got straight to work.

Soon a beautiful creation was visible.

Everything was put on one by one using tweezers that were made for cookie and cake decorating.

Three and a half hours later, her gingerbread house was finished. 

(Can I just say that those green disks at the base of her house are very tasty? Ask me how I know! Hah!)

So much work but the results were worth it. 

She left her gingerbread house here with us and it is displayed on the kitchen island.

Kyle's Gingerbread House

Kyle surprised me, too, but again, I think it's because we had no littles around and could work without needing to stop and take care of something. (The doggos? Yes. They still needed to go out once or twice. Easy peasy.)

Like Lis, he got straight to work, using tweezers and an assortment of decorations.

Quite a gingerbread house began to take shape!

I have never seen anyone use kitchen shears to cut candy canes (at least, not without making a mess)

but he was able to trim them neatly and use them for his house. 

He used the shears, too, to create the arms on his snowman.

Another marshmallow, dusted in a brown sugar, made the chimney.

And I loved his lamp post constructed with a gumdrop and toothpick!

Another talented decorator in the family surfaces!

My Gingerbread House

Then there's me.

When I opened the box containing the house I was to decorate, half the roof had broken off. Lisa had two extra houses and offered one to me, but I didn't see a broken roof, I saw a Breyer barn!

One that's open to allow models to be put inside and played with.

That was my vision. The execution? Not quite what I'd envisioned.

I thought I ought to work from the inside to the outside, so I filled the interior with tiny yellow dragees and then yellow sprinkles on top of that layer to simulate straw. (Betsy in WI, you guessed right!)

I plopped in two Mini Whinnies - the scale between the straw and the models was off, but I was going for effect, not perfection.

Sadly, things derailed after that. 

The icing I'd used to outline the barn doors and windows began to slide and drip.

I tried to wipe it off and begin again, but the coloring had stained the gingerbread. Oh, well. Nothing I could do about that and I was still enjoying myself so all was good.

We ended up with a cute little village of two houses and a barn. And, we had a lot of fun together as we created, chatted, and laughed while we worked.

I'm game to try it again next year. And it may just be a barn again. I've got a plan...

Stay 'tooned, and Happy New Year!

More Decorating

Second Post of the Day

Since Kyle had brought many of our decorations downstairs for me, I am way ahead of schedule on decorating my home. And I am grateful for that - there is a lot to do!

The mantle is done with the exception of hanging our stockings. All of them (aside from a few pet ones) are handmade, and several were knitted by my mother. Needless to say, I don't want them hanging for a long period of time, so they won't be put up until just before family begins arriving.

The dining room chandelier decoration is a tradition of 25 years or so. I saw a photo in a magazine of a chandelier like that and copied it. My kids tell me it is a hallmark of the holiday for them. I also made the tablecloths and my mother made all the Santa mugs that you can see on the second table. The pinecone and greenery-filled bowl was a gift from Craig's mom.

We have two pianos - the "good" piano in the dining room and the player piano in the living room. This is because all our kids took piano lessons and we needed two pianos in order to get their daily practicing in. (We had a third piano at one point in time as the kids became serious about their music.)

This piano is decorated with the Nativity that I grew up with, and the candy cane holder was made for me by Hawkeye Sarah years ago. The ornament holder on the right will hold my favorite childhood ornament.

It is about 70 years old and very fragile. There were two originally, but the other was accidentally broken, so I am very protective of the remaining one. I will probably take it down when family begins arrriving, just in case, and hang something else in its place.

The antique player piano is my favorite of the two pianos, and also a favorite of the Pony Pals and Cowpokes. Many hours will be spent playing it, usually with two kids pumping it together and the rolls they want to play stacking up on top.

My mother made me a beautiful Nativity when we first got married, and Teacher Daughter Lisa and I have a tradition of putting it out together on top of the player piano. She's been very ill and so for the moment, it remains in its tub there on the bottom right.

We got a new tree yesterday - a nine footer that my neighbor was giving away. Her father recently passed and left her several artificial trees that she could not use.

We brought home the nine footer and had to rearrange some furniture to accommodate it.

Beach Son Kyle helped us and moved our antique buffet into the corner where we usually put our Christmas tree. I really like it there and we will probably keep it in that spot from now on.

My mother painted that painting of Santa in 1942 when she was 14 and my Grandpa Honeywell framed it for her. I was lucky enough to inherit it. The German Nativity was a gift from Craig, the miniature candle was my Grandma Honeywell's, and the Russian Matryoshka Dolls are scenes from The Nutcracker Ballet and a reminder of the two years Music City Son Cole lived in Siberia and Russia.

Cole in Surgut, Siberia where it was -49 Celsius/-56.2 Fahrenheit when this photo was taken. Frostbitten cheek, frozen eyelashes... this photo still gives me the chills. 

Porch decor is done, too. I love my pillow of a big red barn that reads, "All roads lead home for Christmas."

Craig usually puts outdoor lights up, but it takes him eight hours or so and lots of crawling up and down a ladder. I've told him I'm okay without the outdoor lights, but he'd really like to do it since all our children are coming home for Christmas. Stay 'tooned on that one!

Christmas Horse of the Day

Eve and Claus, the Thoroughbred Mare and Nursing Foal in red and green holiday blankets. Another web special, they were released in 2015. (I have not found a number on how many sets were made.) This sweet mare and foal are very under-appreciated in my opinion. I like them and think this is a great color for them.

Advent Calendar Reveal - Day 4

Three stacks of bags of feed!

More tomorrow - stay 'tooned!

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is coming and with it, a whole host of family. If the weather and everyone's health cooperates, we could have as many as 35 people here for Christmas dinner.

Needless to say, I am doing everything I can ahead of time to get ready for such a large family gathering. 

The Christmas closet can be intimidating. There are tubs stacked on either side of the doors

and an upper shelf chock full of wreaths, boxes, and assorted decorations.

Thankfully, Kyle is here for a few days and helped me sort it out. He would grab a tub out of the closet and I'd pull out what I wanted and put it into a clothes basket. (I'm not putting all our decorations out this year - with that many people coming, I need a more minimal approach!)

When the clothes basket was full, Kyle would take it downstairs and put it on the dining room table. Then he'd come back upstairs and pull out another tub from the closet. We repeated this process multiple times until everything that I wanted was downstairs. (And the tubs were stacked neatly in the closet and the doors shut!)

Normally this is a very daunting task for Craig and me, especially since we both have some health issues like arthritis that makes it difficult to reach and carry. Plus I can't stand very long, and am still short of breath when I go up stairs or do lifting etc.

Having Kyle's help was a real blessing and he was fun to work with, too. Kyle is a master of word play, puns, and is a very quick thinker. We matched wits repeatedly and, well, he trounced me verbally nearly every time.

We got almost everything out of those baskets and out for display, and the house is looking very Christmassy. I'm not done, but I'm close. Pictures tomorrow, so stay 'tooned!

In case you are wondering, our family member who went to the ER Thanksgiving night was in the hospital several days. Doctors were going to do emergency gallbladder surgery, but X-rays showed pneumonia in the lungs, an anesthetic risk.

After several days of IV antibiotics, breathing treatments, and pain meds, our family member was able to come home late Saturday afternoon with instructions to come back without delay if the gallbladder pain returned. If it does, the surgeon will do immediate emergency surgery to remove it, despite the anesthetic risk. They are now home and resting comfortably, and surgery is scheduled for later this month.

Certainly not the Thanksgiving they expected to have! 

Christmas Horse of the Day

Wassail, the Christmas Surprise Horse!

He came in five colors (red glitter, green glitter, red glitter filigree, green glitter filigree, and charcoal) and instead of being offered on Christmas morning as usual, Breyer surprised collectors by offering him a week or so before Christmas.

Advent Calendar Reveal - Day 2

A bucket and feed tub!

I like how the handle is articulated on the bucket. And while these two pieces are out of scale for Mini Whinnies, 

They would work for a Stablemate. (I can see hobbyists painting these to use with those models.)

Starting to Decorate

Since we got our tree so early this year and it's just been forlornly sitting in our living room, I decided to go ahead and start decorating the rest of our home. (Normally I wait until about ten days before Christmas.)

The holly and ivy swag on our staircase is always the first thing I put up. I really love that part of our holiday decorations.

The dining room is done. Those candy cane striped pillars are a favorite of mine, just like the staircase. (Like my little photo bomber?) 

My antique player piano always looks nice with greenery. On top of it Lisa and I will put my mother's Nativity - we will probably do that this weekend.

I'm going to switch the buffet up a bit - this is just a mishmash of things at the moment but they are all things that I'd like to have out and not upstairs in tubs.

No stockings yet - we will have twenty-five here for Christmas so I am waiting to hang all those until we get closer to Christmas Eve.

There is still the tree to decorate, my mother's Nativity to put out, the outside lights to hang, and my horse tree to put up. But I've got a good start and am way ahead of where I usually am by December 1st!

Christmas Card of the Day

We are kicking off this year's Christmas Card of the Day with one from Barn Buddy Kelsey. Enjoy her beautiful fur buddies!