Everyone is getting into the holiday spirit and of course, I want to share that with my kids too. I've talked a lot about my feelings on growing without Chanukah not getting much attention, and that's why I specifically go out of my way to make Chanukah as awesome as possible for my kids. Of course, presents get them really excited, they even told me presents are better than candy, but it's more than that. It's the whole atmosphere: the decorations, the food, the smells, the traditions of the holiday infused into as many aspects as possible.
Last year we bought the Chanukah house kit, but it came broken and since Hannah is allergic to nuts, I decided we would make our own this year. I remember growing up making them in school, I think kindergarten, out of graham crackers. I knew I was not up for the challenge of baking gingerbread cookies, to specific measurements; I'll take the graham crackers thankyouverymuch. I did some researching, looked up several ideas, and this is the one I followed. What's great about this cite is they give you a step by step video tutorial. However, it doesn't mention though, to be prepared to go through a lot more than just the amount of graham crackers you need. I went through probably a whole package extra because they would break while I was cutting them, or "gluing" them together. Also, graham crackers are smaller than the crackers they're using. So if you use their guidelines on where to cut the angle, your roof won't go over the side. So I made my point a little lower than they recommend. In the tutorial it has the sides of the sides "glued" onto the sides of the front, but my graham crackers weren't long enough to then match up, so I glued the sides along the back of the front. So when you look at front of the house, the sides are behind it. I wish I had taken action shots while I was putting this together, but this project is very forgivable and any mistake that should arise, is completely fixable. Lastly, I used my regular royal icing recipe, and it worked great. I "glued" my houses onto round cake boards; they come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are the perfect base for easy gluing and transporting!
Graham Cracker "Gingerbread" House
Graham crackers-6 per house
Royal Icing:
33/4 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons meringue powder
1/4 cup water
1 capful of flavor (vanilla, butter, almond, etc)
Mix it all together in a mixer for 3-5 minutes until thick and white.
Follow the tutorial on how to cut and "glue" the house together!
Because we are decorating for Chanukah, I knew I wanted the majority of my candies to be blue and white. Unfortunately, it is much harder than one would think to find nut free blue and white candies! But, we made do with what we had, and the kids had an absolute blast!
They were talking about it all week before, and now they reside on our dining room table as decoration.
I was so impressed with their interest and ability to design the houses. I thought for sure I would spent most of the time to tell them to stop eating the candy and to decorate! But I didn't-all three kids, even Hannah got into decorating, some longer than others, but we will definitely be doing this yearly!
You are amazing... I loved the photos. You're building incredible memories for your children. They will recall these traditions when they are adults just like their Mommy did for them.
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