Gingerbread

This year's gingerbread making has been quite different from past years. Not only did I make my own traditional gingerbread house, I also made 12 other gingerbread buildings and the cupcakes you see here. I didn't use my gingerbread cake for the cupcakes, but I thought that the little men added a nice touch. :) The gingerbread village that I baked up over the course of three days is now on display in our dining room, around the base of a beautiful Victorian Christmas tree.


I made these men with royal icing, black licorice, and of course, gingerbread. They turned out really well-- and I enjoyed making different little faces on all of them.


And then, of course, here's my yearly gingerbread house. For the past few years, I've used loads of candy to decorate it, giving it a colorful, warm, and festive look. But this year, I decided to simplify it, and just use royal icing to decorate it (and one candy). :) It turned out rather well, I'd say.



So long for now! Looking forward to the loads and loads of comments this post should bring me. ;)

Christmas and Coca Cola

You find me now sitting in our living room wearing a Santa hat, listening to the melodious voice of Josh Groban, watching my sisters transform our living room into a Christmas wonderland, and sipping some hot apple cider. :) We are a little behind this year with getting all of our Christmas stuff together (hence the lack of gingerbread houses on this blog so far), but alas, we're finally getting it all up. It's so exciting!

I spent a good while today looking up recipes and making a grocery list for all of the Christmas festivities. We are having a Christmas party this year (yay!), and there are lots of delicious goodies to be made. Yes, the air is finally filled with joy of Christmas. :)

The pictures in my post today, since it MUST include photos (as I've said many times before) are going to be some of my favorite ones to look at. I loved them when I was a little kid, and I love them now. They are... dun dunna na... Christmas Coca Cola advertisements! :D Betcha never would have guessed that. ;) We have these beauteous Christmas mugs with a bunch of these pictures on them, and they have always brought me a great deal of pleasure to look at. The style reminds me of my favorite artist, Norman Rockwell.

So, here we go! Enjoy!








Oh, and... speaking of Christmas and Coca Cola... did you know that we each get one of those old fashioned glass bottles of Coca Cola in our stockings each year? Yup. We do. :)