Gingerbread Recap

[nicolewi]

We survived the "gingerbread and pigs" party! The girls were a really nice group and I think everyone had fun. I enjoyed the actual party, but the lead-up was brutal. This was just a really tough year to plan this and I was regretting it big time. DH and I were totally stressed and fighting during party prep and I burned my fingers and the kids have been sick and we have funerals and we are so behind...but it all ended up okay. On the day of the party, our tree looked beautiful, the girls were sweet, and it was softly snowing outside so that all seemed pretty idyllic. It was like the Instagram version without showing the prep-work reality. 

Message me if you are planning anything similar and want any info. My biggest take-aways:

--The metal pans from Dollar Tree were a GREAT idea to keep everything contained and easy to take home. 

--buy a lot of extra crackers if you are using grahams. I used a plan that needed 10 full sheet crackers per house, and TONS broke in the process of trimming the roof into a triangle and also "glueing" together. I went through a LOT--I think about 6 or 7 boxes. 

--The melted sugar worked fantastic for "glueing" the houses together ahead of time. This is not at all the fault of whoever suggested this, who warned me to be careful, but I DID badly burn two fingertips right at the end when I was talking to DD and let my guard down while making a couple extra houses (I was DONE and could have quit earlier!). However, luckily, it's turned out to be not nearly as bad as it initially seemed and my fingers are already doing just fine. Thank goodness. I panicked and called the nurse line and seriously thought I was going to have 2 fingers out of commission all through Christmas. My mom happened to call and I burst into tears on the phone! I spent an entire evening with my fingers in water but they were fine the next day. 

--I looked all over last-minute for merengue powder for the icing; all I could find was a tub for $15 and I thought that was stupid, so we just made a powdered sugar glaze, thick, with a little corn syrup. Worked GREAT. I would totally just do that again.

--My squeeze bottles never came!!! So used Zip-Loc freezer bags, quart size, and that was messy to fill but worked totally fine for the girls. Way better than I had expected.

--Needed WAY less icing than I thought! I made an insane amount. Each kid really only used probably less than one cup of icing. 

--The Stouffer's was great! Would keep in mind for a future party, for sure.

--We did our ornament craft (I had DD lead it) while we cleaned up main gingerbread table and got set up for lunch. It was a good plan for them to have something to do during that transition time. 

--I was going to make pig cupcakes with cake mix and canned frosting, but had an epiphany that I could just order plain cupcakes and decorate them. I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier! In a huge stroke of luck, I'd missed the order deadline but the store happened to need to make a batch of cupcakes that day to re-stock so they were able to do an order for me. This ended up being such a Godsend. We just added eyes and marshmallow noses/ears with pink peppermint marshmallows from Target, and the cupcakes were absolutely darling (and easy). 

--Always have extra activities ready. I was prepared with extras, and we did everything! I had my older DD lead them in Frogger, which is a GREAT group game if you need a time-filler. It's the one where someone "murders" people by secretly sticking her tongue out at them, and the detective has to guess who is the killer/"frogger". 

Thanks for all the advice and tips! Much appreciated!!