A Christmas Eve Tradition

Baking and decorating a gingerbread house has been an annual tradition for my family since Christmas 1997...the year my daughter Laura was born.  Like the sugar cookies, I had decorated gingerbread houses since I was a teenager, on and off.  However, this has now become an annual tradition for my family.  We all add our decorative touches and over the years, our goal is to make each year's gingerbread house a little different from the prior years.  We all decorate our own gingerbread boy or girl since it represents us.

This is the Wagner Gingerbread House for Christmas 2010:

Laura decided to create snowmen in front of the gingerbread  house...probably because we have an assortment of snowmen decorating the front of our house.

L

 Alex was also very creative this year.  He created many toys for the gingerbread house.  I decorated the trees and Alex added toys like a toy train circling the train. Other toys he created was a sled and a truck.

 Gingerbread decorating the Christmas Tree on the back of the Gingerbread House represents David.  Alex has a candy cane smile and is surrounded by toys, (all created by him...so creative!)

In the back of the Gingerbread house is "David" and "Alex"

 Laura decorated the side of the house with crushed cany canes and added a little candy cane bow to her gingerbread girl "Laura."

 "Isabel" by the front door of the house.  I love ruffles so my gingerbread girl has a ruffled skirt.  Laura did a fantastic job with "Laura's" swirl skirt...again, very proud of my kids creativity.

A bird eye view of our gingerbread home...