When I first went to write this post I had intended to give some tips on creating gingerbread houses with littles, until a comment in response to my post idea got me thinking – what kind of traditions am I doing with my family? Without even meaning to or thinking about it – it’s making gingerbread houses in one form or another. Without thought, I’ve unintentionally started a pretty fun tradition with my kids that I now plan to continue and elaborate as the years go on.
When my eldest was younger (only child and newborn around) I did a slew of crafts and activities with her because, frankly, it was easier. As she and her siblings grew it became much more difficult to continue them and make them into our traditions. However, now that I think about it, the one that stuck was decorating gingerbread houses. It’s a fun, exciting, and yummy activity that I’ve found all of my kids can enjoy doing, and can grow with them as they age.
Below are some tips on keeping it exciting and having the activity grow with them.
For reference – my children are 5, 3.5 and 2.
Start with pre-made houses: We got ours this year from Target. It comes with the house already put together, on a piece of cardboard and comes with extra icing and candy for decorations. We ended up tossing the small hard candies and instead had the kids use leftover halloween candy to decorate with.
Once they get a bit older, I will have them move on to assembling the house with pre-made pieces.
Then graduate to making our own gingerbread house pieces.
Keep adding in some fun decorations, candies, icing, and keep building them bigger. An Idea I love that was included in my previously mentioned comment was having the kids make little villages or compete to make the best one.
I am hoping this can be our true holiday tradition that the kids look forward to doing every year.
