What was more fun than smearing frosting onto graham crackers, topping them with candy and then trying to prop them up onto a piece of cardboard until they somewhat resembled gingerbread houses?
Smashing them all to pieces.
We took a hammer to our gingerbread houses and it was AWESOME.
This is the first year we have made gingerbread houses together. Of course we cheated and used store-bought graham crackers and store-bought frosting, but it still felt like really hard work.
My two older boys and I made them on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas while my youngest was taking a nap. We ended up with candy and frosting everywhere but surprisingly I didn’t shout at all during the whole production – It was a major accomplishment.
My oldest made an army bunker with an artillery storage area filled with Sixlet cannon balls. He broke toothpicks in half so he could arm his gummy bear infantry with weapons.
My 5-year-old made a tall, narrow fire station. It was guarded by gummy-bear spies on the roof and a marching army of them by the front door.
My house nearly ended up as a Weasley house. It tipped and leaned so many times I nearly gave up. It was by far the worst-made house of the three. I finally got it to stay upright and threatened everyone in the home not to breathe on it.
We set the houses on our dinner table and kept them up well after Christmas.
Honestly I didn’t know how we were going to be able to part with them. My boys are hoarders. They hate to throw things away. For a long time we had to take pictures of random household objects before tossing them so that my oldest could “remember” them (you can read about that here.)
So I was dreading the day I’d have to toss our gingerbread village. I thought about having a house-eating party, but my boys didn’t really even like the candy we used in the first place – especially the gumdrops. I was sure they wouldn’t eat it stale and dry.
So I had the brilliant idea to kick, throw, and whack the houses away.
We set out a blue tarp on our driveway and took turns with the hammer. Candy, graham crackers and frosting flew into the sky as we giggled and trashed all of our hard work.
But I didn’t hear one complaint. No requests to save the houses and no whines about how we were ruining them.
We hit them so hard we punched holes into our tarp.
Smashing them was by far much more fun than taking pictures and then tossing the houses into the trash.
We’ve got to do it again next year.
Boogers on the Wall 