You’ve Probably Never Seen a Gingerbread House like this…take a peek!
My son is obsessed with tornados, more than any other destructive environmental condition. It is no surprise to me that he wanted to include a tornado in his gingerbread house scene. I am very lucky that my mom has a large role in his life and loves to talk to him and spark his creativity.
We both teased ideas out of him like where is this tornado and what kind of gingerbread house would you like to design. We were quickly educated that there are no tornados at the North Pole, only a snownado could exist where there is no land or trees to uproot. If you look up snownado on the internet you will find photos taken on mountains, by skiers who were lucky enough to witness the event only to have it blow away after it dies down. I guess because snow is powdery it doesn’t reach the same size as other massive tornadoes we have seen that sweep across the U.S., often leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
We felt it necessary to build the structures necessary for him to decorate rather than it be a lesson in mechanical engineering. I put ModPodge in a small plate And rolloe the bottle in it in small sections. ModPodge is like a jigsaw puzzle glue which I paint on my painted rocks I would use a combination of batting and stuffing to wrap around the bottle to create the effect of a billowy, freeform whirling snownado. We needed to figure out how to affix the plastic water bottle upside down to the floor of the display, and daddy saved the day with his engineering background. He put the cap underneath the floor and stapled it on with tape, and the bottle was screwed in. That sucker was not moving anymore, when before it was kind of floppy. There was a North Pole sign affixed to a rock candy lollipop that was bobbing around too freely to last while on display for 7 days at Town Hall.
One of the funniest elements of these chaotic gingerbread scene was when the door blows off Santa’s Workshop and the elves, both boys and girls, stand in a large group in front of the open door to protect the presents inside awaiting Santa’s arrival with his reindeer to load up his sleigh. These elves are getting into action, with their hand painted red and green dresses/jumpsuits. They are leaning with all their might with their backs against the open door. If you look closely, you will see miniature presents which we stuffed into the empty house when we detached the door with the help of a QTip dipped in water rubbed around the door frame. A metal skewers gently scraped around the door line gently helped us remove it without anything cracking.
Sean fixed down small pine trees to the side of the workshop. He bent them in the direction of the snownado to give the illusion that the snownado was active and posing a threat, not just a fixed puffy cloud off to the side. It makes it look like it’s really blowing and trying to suck them up. I love it!
A combination of peppermint candies and marshmallows decorate the roof with a white KitKat apex. Sean enjoyed decorating the roof piece but he says his favorite piece to decorate was the snownado.
When dropping Sean off at school this morning, I had the gingerbread house snownado scene loaded into the SUV. I then unloaded my motorized scooter and it was placed in my lap. We went down the hall my mom and I to Parks and Recreation where we entered Sean’s gingerbread house creation in the contest. The girl remembered Seen’s Minecraft creation that won 1st place last year. She carried the house back to the entrance where there was a table with a few other entries on display. She placed a #6 on it. I can’t wait to see people’s reactions to his creation, especially Sean’s reaction.
Have you ever built or decorated a gingerbread house? Did you bake it yourself or are you not a Martha like me. I’d love to hear your story.
