15th Annual Christmas Tradition ~ Part One

I have been a busy bee and have taken lots of pictures, but have not done any blog posts!

 I will begin with Thanksgiving weekend, and eventually post about

the other things! I am sure you can tell what we have done every Christmas for

all these years, and now there is no getting out of it.

Daughter*3 and her roommate, who was here for Thanksgiving.

Hubby, explaining why he shouldn't be in trouble
for his VERY easy project...

Daughter *3

First, we plan and plot, and see what we can make differently
than what we have done before.

I always wonder what everyone will come up with.
I never cease to be amazed at what they decide to make.

A "Pine Tree House"...can you tell???

Sometimes, they don't look anything like what they are supposed to be, and other times you can tell exactly what it is!

Daughter*2 

And other times,
we are just feeling tired and just stick with what we
do best... Christmas Cottages.

We aren't like everyone else,
we don't use gingerbread cookie pieces,  we are lazy and just like to use Graham Crackers to make our  "Cracker Christmas Village".

When we started making these, our oldest was 14 and the youngest was 18 months and it just made sense to
make them easy and doable.

My MILaw has been a cake
decorator for years.  We use her Royal Icing Recipe because it dries hard and holds the houses together
 very well. This started out as a Grandma and Grandpa time with our family.  It has been so much fun!  I was having extreme anxiety the Christmas my MILaw suggested it and I just felt sick about doing it. It was overwhelming.  But she bought and brought the stuff, and it was great for the kids.

It has become a tradition and even the years I have had anxiety we have still done it.
Candy lasts forever, as long as you don't want to EAT it!!!

 

and her "Christmas Cottage".

We have had many cracker things built through the years...my hubby comes up with the most ....a....clever.... ;) things to make.
One year, it was an outhouse, with a Nerds banana on the side, for the moon on the outhouse...
One year it was a cliff tent, hanging with a string of lights on the outside...
SILaw*1 made a tank one year,...you can tell he works for the Army! SIL*2 and Daughter*4 made a carousel with swedish fish and molded starburst candies as the animals.
We have had a log cabin made from pretzels,
complete with a fireplace and smoke coming out of the chimney.We have had a sled with marshmellow snowmen riding it. We even had a mobile home that looked about like the one we used to live in. A candy necklace was used as the lights around the roof of the trailer.
Once, we had a "Mansion" that collapsed from the  weight of all the frosting and the treats on the roof... It was very hilarious! but you had to be here to understand why it was so funny...

Our only Son

Our son returned from a two year mission in Brazil for our church this last August, and it was so much fun having him here to create with us instead of just sending him the pictures.

He was the "Mansion" architect all those years ago, and still is pretty creative on his projects for the Graham Cracker houses.

We all love music, but he plays the most instruments of anyone in the family,  so what do you think HE made....
"A Baby Graham Piano"

ha, ha, ha....





I bought this vinyl tablecloth a few years ago, on special after christmas,  so we could have a festive easy clean up for our event.

It makes a great backdrop for the pictures. I wish I would have taken pictures each year, I don't know what I was thinking. I will be taking them from now on, however.



One of my nieces came to our home for Thanksgiving because she could drive here with our kids the 650 miles, and she didn't have to purchase a plane ticket to go home back east. It was wonderful spending time with her. Her parents, her mom is my sister, introduced me to my hubby. When I was in high school, they lived across the road from where we built our house. Her father's family also lives here so she was able to visit with them.

Niece from Kentucky

Didn't she make a cute little house?

This was supposed to be a quick post.... yeah right, I have much to learn...

Okay, it is so confusing on my template right now, I will have to make a Part Two!! Hopefully you'll follow over!  When I get it posted I will add a link HERE to take you to Part Two!

Happy Christmas Cottages to you!
Hugs,
Betsy