2018 Gingerbread Scene

Jeanne came by for a Mom/Jeanne joint birthday project. We both enjoy all the details that go into making a gingerbread house and its surroundings. We spent most of one day together reveling in the creation.

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We started with a basic gingerbread house kit. It comes with all the gingerbread pieces, a few packets of candies, a bag of icing, a plastic tray to build the house on, and cardboard cutouts of the Peanuts characters.

Jeanne and I built a corrugated cardboard box to fit inside the house giving the gingerbread some extra structural integrity. We actually used hot glue to attach many of the gingerbread pieces, then used the icing as decoration, rather than as the glue that holds the house together. We used a double thick piece of foam core as the base of the scene.

Once the basic house was built and decorated, we placed it on the foam core and planned out our scene. We have some trees and snowmen that we utilize every year, so they needed a place to go. We decided to add a porch to the front of the house, and a fire pit out in the yard. Then we let our imaginations run wild.

The front of the house is festooned with lights along the gable and a sugar jelly wreath with a bow made from white Twizzlers. The candy cane stripe around the door and the red window panes are also made of Twizzlers. There are green sugar jelly bushes all around the house. The fence surrounding the porch is made of candy canes with larger candy ball finials. I like how it looks like Woodstock just finished shoveling the walkway to the door and is on his way back inside.

The windows are lit with colorful small candy balls. The yellow bells are also sugar jelly, with yellow candy ball clappers and a real satin ribbon bow. The roof of the house has a red sugar jelly star at the front gable. The roof tiles are made of Wheat Chex cereal. There are more sugar balls and oblong sugar candies along the ridgepole. The bricks on the chimney are made from tiny strips of Twizzlers. All parts of the roof are held together with icing.

The back of the house is simpler because it will be against a wall when the gingerbread house is on display. But we did outline the windows and door with green Twizzler strips while the panes are delineated with red Twizzler strips. The door is covered with pink flat candy rounds with a larger purple candy ball for a handle. The gable is outline with more sugar ball lights. The final touch is another sugar jelly wreath, this time with a red bow made of Twizzlers.

A path of icing leads to the fire pit on the right side of the house. A forest of trees stand behind the singers, complete with gold button stars on top. The base of each tree is supported with peppermint rounds.

Most of the Peanuts clan is enjoying the fire and singing carols ... well, all singing except Snoopy. He has other Christmas treats on his mind.

The local snowfolk have stopped by to find out what to make of the singing. One seems to want to join in, ringing the bell on his hat to the beat of the music. The other? Not quite sure what to make of all the racket, and a little fearful that, if he gets too close, he'll melt in the warmth of the fire.

I'm particularly proud of the texture in the snow. It has a base of icing. Then we added small white sugar balls and white flat candy rounds to make it look like some graupel fell after the last snowfall. The fire pit is made of broken segments of the red sugar jelly wreaths, outlined in the large red and green sugar balls. Jeanne created the fire from red, yellow, and orange sugar jelly candies.

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Snoopy is reveling in his cookie as he listens to his friends sing in the warmth of the firelight. The pup knows how to party!

I thoroughly enjoyed my day with my birthday buddy. It was a great way for just the two of us to have special time for our joint birthday.