The Gingerbread Family

Why to put a lot effort and time on something that cannot be eaten before it has gathered dust almost a month? Because it is so beautiful, so funny and it spreads the Christmas scent all over the kitchen.

This year we had a new model for the house, our new home Pellas. It was the most difficult I had ever made but it is now ready and placed up on the cupboard - to be seen but not to be touched by the dogs or the small admiring hands... Thanks for the talented architect who made me the model!

In the previous life I use to bake a much more simple cabin with my girls but with a lot of symbolic features. There were I and my girls, our dogs - also the ones in heaven placed on the roof - and then our dream-come-true servants Pentti and Hillevi. I was a single-mother hands full of work and we use to dream of having some helping hands like Pentti who would cook us delicious meals and clean the house and his wife Hillevi who would clear the snow and carry to firewood inside - the strong feminist in me here educating the daughters about facts in life!

Then before moving in to our new home with our new family we had the lighthouse to show us the way through the months of renovation and all nine of us around it like the Moomin family on their way to the adventures. As you can see, I take this house thing seriously...

So it all began with baking the parts - and to make them strong enough you have to make a special house dough.

Then the parts are baked - perhaps a bit harder than the ordinary ginger bread cookies - and then decorated. Everyone gets a part  and free hands to use own imagination - and sugar-mix and sweets, lots of sweets! You should let it dry few days and then melt some sugar in a frying pan and dip the parts or with a help of a paddle pour the hot sugar on the edges. And a puff of powdered sugar!

And there is our whole family! Until the 13th January, the day of Nuutti, Knut, the day the Christmas time is over. All Christmas decorations are packed in their boxes, last bottle of the Glogg is warmed and the ginger bread house is eaten together. Can you guess which parts are the most popular...?