Last Christmas our house was in complete chaos, our schedules were nuts, and the tradition of decorating gingerbread houses with Joy and Collin just never came together.  But not this year!  We made sure to get it on the calendar early and even had the perk of Kook being in town to join in on the fun.

After the first couple of years of making the gingerbread houses from scratch, I gave in and bought kits.  I still make the gingerbread for the trees and men we put on the "property", but have simplified my life with the kits.  This year, we added another simplification (that's also probably cheating) that was wonderful - hot glue!  We decided to glue the houses together this year so we could focus on the decorating.  It was the right call.

We pulled out our stash of candy (it's enormous I tell you) and released our creativity.  Joy, Collin and Kook created the Polar Express train station, while Lee and I created a lovely winter scene with what turned out to be the TransAntartic skyscraper of sugar cubes (not quite the igloo look I was going for).

We had a lot of fun and love that Joy and Collin are still here to keep the tradition alive.  We posted a few photos to the gallery if you need close ups.  (I was quite pleased with my little gumball snowman).  :)