Kid friendly gingerbread decorating party using graham crackers
Christmas with kids is always fun. There’s so many traditions you can start with them. Like baking cookies, making Christmas stockings, and decorating gingerbread houses to name a few.
We made graham cracker gingerbread houses last night and it was so much fun! And my stress level was at a ZERO! Yes, a zero. If you are a momma of multiples, especially multiples that are stair steps, you know what I’m talking about. Things like this can stress us out. My secret to a no stress gingerbread making party? Let the kids have fun and don’t worry about any of it being pretty or perfect. That’s it!
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Don’t get me wrong the pictures on Pinterest with the perfectly decorated “kid” made gingerbread houses are absolutely adorable. A picture perfect graham cracker house with a tiny little spill of sprinkles on the table and a dab of out of place frosting is oh so cute…but let’s be honest that’s not likely to happen in most homes with little ones. As a mom of 4 I KNOW this lol! And really, where’s the fun if there’s not a GIANT MESS of sprinkles, crumbs of graham crackers, frosting smeared on their faces and broken candy canes to pick up?
So let’s ditch the vision of perfectly put together Christmas gingerbread houses and embrace that beautiful chaos. Those are the moments you are connecting with kids. Those are the moments your kids are learning. Those are the moments that matter.
GRAHAM CRACKER GINGERBREAD HOUSE YOUR KIDS WILL ENJOY MAKING
Most of the supplies I picked up at my local Dollar Tree. Here’s what we used
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graham crackers
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2 tubs of cream cheese frosting
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green food coloring
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mini candy canes
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gumdrops
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assorted hard candies
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large spree candies
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twizzlers pull and peel
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red and white round peppermints
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green and white peppermints
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mini & regular sized marshmallows
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jellybeans
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traditional pretzels
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large & mini pretzel sticks
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sprinkles
Other supplies that we used:
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assorted bowls & dishes
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rubber bands (to tie the frosting bags closed so it doesn’t come out)
To free up space we used cake stands to hold the candies that were in these little glass condiment dishes. I love these little dishes. They are super cheap, only $.25 each! This got them up and off of the table so that the girls would have more space to create.
We used another cake stand to hold the sprinkles and the bags of frosting. The frosting I used, generic cream cheese frosting in a can, wasn’t really the best for this but it works. It doesn’t set up/dry super fast but it works. We also stuck the bags of frosting in the fridge about an hour before we started decorating so that the icing would be more firm to work with.
Each daughter got a paper plate to make their gingerbread house on.
They played around with different designs then started “gluing” their pieces together using the bags of icing.
After their houses set up, the frosting had hardened a bit, they decorated their little hearts out!
I always love seeing their creativity take flight. They kept adding and adding candies thinking of new ways they could use all the different colors and shapes.
My third daughter was the only one to make a snowman out of the marshmallows. He was adorable with his little hard candy hat and twizzler scarf.
I love the doorway my first born daughter made using the marshmallows.
And this super creative door crafted by daughter number 2 made into the shape of a heart using mini peppermint sticks. Adorable!
Last but not least is the masterpiece from daughter number 4. Oh the love that was put into this. It may look like a mess to others but she had THE MOST fun making this. After her original house fell she turned the rubble into a work of gingerbread house art!
Sure our houses weren’t perfect by Pinterest standards but it doesn’t even matter. For a couple of hours our family sat around our kitchen table and had the best time singing random songs, cracking jokes, teasing one another, and making memories. AND there wasn’t an argument one! I know, super rare for a family with 4 kiddos. It was a perfect Christmas themed evening.
