Christmas Tradition

Last few Christmas' our children have chosen a gift to donate to Santa's Sleigh to help local kids who will not have such a memorable Christmas.  We have been so blessed again this year. Looking back on all the things God has given us, we are blown away. Work has been good, and continuous, Lakeland College has given us another year of work. Because we have been given much we too must give. This year the kids picked transformers and a magna doodle to pass on to the less fortunate. 

 After Toy donation it was time to get serious and build a gingerbread house. This years theme, one for the house three for me. Most of the candy was gone after we were done building the house, and as you can tell by the photo, there aint much candy on the house.  This old tradition, has been fun to carry on with, especially as the kids are getting older and are doing most of decorating themselves.
Our next challenge is to make a house from scratch. yeah right!!!

History of Gingerbread Houses

Who doesn't love making a gingerbread house during Christmas? Ginger can be traced back to Europe during the 11th Century. Explorers came back from the Middle East with the spice ginger. It quickly became popular, especially in Germany. Nuremberg, Germany is the gingerbread capital of the world. 

The gingerbread house became popular in Germany after the Brothers Grimm published their fairy tale collection which included "Hansel and Gretel" in the 19th century. Early German settlers brought this lebkuchenhaeusle - gingerbread house - a tradition to the Americas.