Gingerbread Weekend

Gingerbread weekend. Sissy and I have been making these together for close to fifteen years. Eeek. That sounds like we're old.

We're not. We're worn in, like comfortable old jeans.

We've tried lots of different ideas over the years, some successful and some not. The tootsie roll mailboxes, not successful. Too sticky and they kept falling over. Plus, I ate too many of them while trying to shape just one for the house.

M&M roof, successful. This is the only part of the gingerbread house that we actually eat. Well, we pick off our favorite candies from the sides of the house but the roof is the only gingerbread we eat. It's very tasty with the chocolate M&Ms on it.

We eat a LOT of candy on decorating day. Sissy and I bake the pieces a few days before and then we have the girlies do the decorating. Of course, we have to taste test all the different kinds of candy to make sure none of it is stale.

You can't put stale candy on a gingerbread house that is going to sit out in the air for oh, a month or so.

The girlies like this part.

K. double-dog dared me to frost her cheek. She should know better. I had a splop piped onto her cheek faster than she could say, "You wouldn't dare!"

My friend, C., called me today and asked if I wanted to head to the mall and be part of a "spontaneous" Hallelujah Chorus being sung out at malls across the country this month. Today was our turn.

I have never heard such a thing before.

Voices just kept lifting higher, and higher, and higher.  Smiling faces, cameras flashing, calm children, it was unbelievable. A moment frozen in time, Christmas shopping on hold, while we sang praise to our God.

Chills.

The Man and I snuggled on the couch with a hot cup of coffee and a warm fur blanket (fake fur, don't panic) and watched "White Christmas" while the kids made gagging sounds every time they walked by.

Now everyone is in bed and I'm sitting here, blogging, and listening to Andrea Bocelli sing "Ave Maria". Does it get any more beautiful than that?