The only gingerbread I had ever made before this year was graham crackers and store-bought frosting, but I set out to make one completely from scratch. I mentioned this to Veronica and Mike on our trip back from Thanksgiving and we all started brain storming what sort of things we could make - trailers, lighthouses, outhouses, post offices....
In the end, Mike stuck with the unconventional theme and made a replica of the Alamo (see also, their chicken coop).
I went a more conventional route, but I love it.
We used a rather bland gingerbread recipe so when I made the leftover dough into gingerbread men, I followed Veronica's request for chocolate gingerbread men by dunking them in ganache.
They didn't all make it out of the ganache unscathed.
With the house smelling like Christmas, it was time to get the decorations up. I've been slowly growing our Christmas decorations over the years and they are almost all handmade. I decided to add a pompom garland to the tree this year following the instructions from One Pearl Button. I used some scrap yarn I had lying around so I ended up with a pink, blue, green, and silver garland. A bit unconventional, but I like it. Plus, the non-Christmasy colors mean it can reappear for other festive events. Birthday garland anyone?
For the past five years, I have made a photo ornament of Geoff and I. This reindeer is for 2011 - just waiting for a nice picture of the two of us. Here's the whole tree:
I made a few more decorations with scrap yarn. I get my craftiness from my mom who made all of the decorations for she and dad's first several trees. A few years ago, she made me a set of red crochet snowflakes like the ones that decorated their trees thirty years ago. I had more than would fit on my tree to I made another garland to show them off.
This is all the snow we will be getting in Texas this year - highs in the 60s and 70s all week! With the house decorated, I wanted to make a little something for my desk at work. I used this tutorial that I spotted on Craftzine. So easy. So quick. So cute.
I've also been hard at work making Christmas gifts. I'll be sharing most of them after Christmas (so as not to spoil the surprises), but I did want to point any knitters out there still looking for last minute gifts towards this scarflet. I knit it up in some luxurious Malabrigo Rasta in about three hours. It is sooooo cute in this yarn that it was really hard for me to give up. They had a gorgeous mustard skein too that I am thinking about heading back and getting. Maybe a hat for me?
Christmas is also a great excuse to get out of the house and spend time with friends. We went to the McNay Museum of Modern Art (which is just around the corner from us) to see their Nightmare before Christmas exhibit last week and this weekend we attended a Christmas party at the head of my department's house and then donned our Christmas jammies for another party hosted by some friends we met through Veronica. And now it is just six days until Christmas!!!
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