CANDY HOUSES WITH GRANDMA MARY

One other tradition I wanted to share was making candy houses with Grandma Mary. This is something she and my Mom would do with us kids at Christmas time. We all get together and the three of us would do it together every year before Christmas. Mary would make each of us a house out of gingerbread she would make from scratch. Then we would have a grand time decorating it with a ton of candy. One year my mom even made one from suguar cubes. Grandma just recently gave me that magazine to look at. She kept it after all those years. I think I might try this with Stuart this year. Well, as we all grew up we stoped making the candy house for awhile. I think Stuart was about 2 and we went for a visit to Grandma's house and she said she had something for him. She pulled out a wooden board and I knew right away what was going to happen. You see this one of the boards we used as kids to build our candy house on. It was now time to start making the candy houses again. Stuart was thrilled. That first year alot of icing was eaten and only about every 2nd or 3rd candy actually made it on to the house. What fun!!! That year we advised everyone to just admire the candies and to only eat the pre-wrapped ones as we weren't sure how many of them might have been licked before being attatched to the house. When it was time for Emily to start doing hers it was the same, however we have now past that stage and they both made beautiful houses once again this year. This is a very special tradition the kids (and myself) look forward to each holiday season.