Gingerbread and Hot Cocoa

I had to reschedule to a later time slot due to sports, one still had back to back practices and the three oldest grandchildren had numerous conflicts, but we did get the houses made! 

I cheated and bought box kits. These came from Family Dollar and were only $5 each. They came with candy, icing and all the prebaked pieces for the house and roof. I was more than impressed. The pieces were thick enough that they did not break, they were cut with slots like giant puzzle pieces and the icing dried quickly enough that they did not collapse while being decorated. 

To kill some time while the walls set up, I prebaked some cut out cookies from GFS for the kids to decorate. 

The white foam trays for the cookies and houses helped keep other people's fingers out of your icing, frosting and candies. 

I was so excited at how seriously they undertook the tasting of the hot cocoa.  Everyone got three of the tiny Santa mugs I purchased at Big Lots. #1 was Salted Carmel, #2 was raspberry, #3 was original, plain old hot cocoa.  (I don't have an adventurous bunch). The tasters voted and it was very close between Salted Carmel and original. 

Even the little guys were proud of their creations.  

I baked a ham, put together a macaroni salad, a pasta salad and a crockpot of chili for the parents and children.  After all their hard work, they put about 5 ornaments on my tree (the decorating plan was a failure). They wrote a short play about leaving Santa milk and cookies; we were treated to a performance.  Then they just enjoyed being cousins.  I am going to try to upload a video which shows a brief minute in the chaos that ensued. 

It went very well!  I love getting as many of my grandchildren together as possible and creating memories.  I think they all really enjoyed the evening. 

I had some meetings today - I don't want to share a downer - and tomorrow I guess I will decorate the tree.