Gingerbread parties

Growing up near family, there were many opportunities to spend time with family. Christmas just wasn't Christmas without busily traveling around to spend time with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins.

When John and I were first married, that travel schedule nearly doubled as now we needed to spend time with each other's families during the holidays.

It was crazy, but nice to feel surrounded by loved ones.

And then we moved 800 miles away.

It took us awhile to adjust, and more often than not we have grandparents visit us for the Holidays, but I still felt (feel) bad about not being able to give my kids what I had growing up.

Let me leave you with that thought as I shift gears here for a second.

Several (7 or 8) years ago our family got our first invite to a gingerbread house making party from our good friends who lived across the street. It was a tradition in her family when she was growing up. Their mother would make a bunch of gingerbread houses and invite family and friends over and have a party and make gingerbread houses. It had become such a part of the Christmas Holiday to her that she couldn't "get in the Christmas spirit" until she had a party. (She was living far away from her family then too.)

After a couple years of going to gingerbread parties at her house, we both ended up moving away within weeks of each other. We only moved a couple of miles down the road, but her family moved many hundred miles away back to her home town.

That December I was a little depressed. I actually pouted because I was not going to get invited to a party that year. Boo-hoo. Poor me.

It actually took me awhile to come to the realization that if it mattered that much to me, then I should throw a party myself.

I make the gingerbread house parts, and the icing, and make up some wassail, and each family brings a couple of bags of candy and possibly an appetizer or some other treat to munch on, and we listen to Christmas music until someone else convinces John to change it to football. And each family makes a gingerbread house. And that's it.

Now it's part of what we do. My kids have come to expect it year after year. And it's a tradition that I can give my kids. I might not be able to surround them with family and cousins, but we have friends.

We love it, but it causes me much stress. Cleaning, and baking, and the guest list. Mostly the guest list. This year we threw three parties because I have a hard time not inviting everyone. I have pretty much figured out that we can invite only 6 families per party. I have two tables, and borrow a third, and that means that two families have to share each table. Even if I were to figure out how to squeeze more people into the house, it's just too crazy and then we don't get the opportunity to visit with everybody. And that's the fun part for John and I.

But I really stress over the guest list. There are those friends who have been coming for years, and friends we have become close with, and then there are those that we would like to get to know better, and my kids always have requests, and it's hard to make those decisions. And I worry about offending people or hurting their feelings. And then I think that maybe it's just a dumb party and my friends humor me and show up because they like me and they have nothing else going on. (I plan them on Monday nights for FHE, and most people have Monday nights free)

And then I hear other things. One year I didn't have a party because I was pregnant and sick, and one friend said "oh good, I just thought you didn't invite us, and I was feeling really bad." And someone else said, "we had so much fun, thanks for inviting us, it's a tradition now in our family. We don't have many, but coming to your party is one of them." and someone else said that one person was telling her how happy they were that they "finally got invited to a gingerbread party." And then last summer there was the lady who cornered me and asked why she had never been invited. Her kids were all grown, and I didn't think she was interested. She brought her grand kids this year. Their mom was sick and in the hospital. She told me it was a highlight for the kids this month.

And we love it. The kids are in charge of decorating one gingerbread house for us, and it generally takes all three parties to get it done because they would rather run off and play with whatever kids they can drag away. Madison did most of the work this year. The garden is very extensive, it even has a swimming pool.

I added that window. Admit it, you're impressed.

When she was finished she said she couldn't fit one more piece of candy on the house.

Gingerbread party

Several years ago my good friend and neighbor Mindy called me up and invited our family over to theirs for family home evening. We would be making gingerbread houses. I just had to supply some candy to decorate the house with, she would do the rest. She explained that it was something her mother had done for years and years and years and now that she was living in another state with her own family she just couldn't get into the Christmas spirit until she threw a gingerbread party. It was a lot of fun. We were invited back the next year as well, but the year after that she moved back to Utah, and we moved to the house we are currently living in.

That Christmas I started feeling sorry for myself because I wasn't going to be invited to a gingerbread party. I actually sat around moping for a few days until it dawned on me that I could throw a party and start a new tradition and not rely on others for my own happiness. And so the Berrett Family Gingerbread Party was born. I had to call up my friend, and get the recipe and the instructions, and she faxed down the templates to cut out the walls and roof pieces.

I start baking about a week before because the staler and the harder the pieces are, the better. Soft gingerbread just doesn't hold up as well. The other day I came downstairs to find this-

That's Christopher's addition. I think he decided we were going to go with the Hansel and Gretel theme this year. He's done that to me before. One year I needed to make sugar cookies for something and he had taken one bite out of each of about a dozen cookies and thrown them on the floor. Luckily all those were the "extras" and the ones I needed were frosted and he doesn't like frosting on his cookies.

It's been a lot of fun over the years. Just the other night Nick was saying that when he grows up and has his own family he's going to have a gingerbread party every year too. I'm glad it means so much to him. It's a lot of work, baking and cleaning, but it's worth it. We always try to invite friends from the "old neighborhood", friends that we don't get to see much any more, and this helps keep us connected. We invite our next door neighbors and it's a fun way to get to know them better. Currently our family's house is only half decorated. We all spend so much time talking (and in the case of the kids playing with their friends) that our house never gets done. One year the kids didn't end up decorating it until New Years Eve. It's a fun tradition and a great way to kick off the season for our family.