Traditions...Gingerbread houses w/ the Charltons

Every year we love to decorate gingerbread houses with Mallorie & Sophie Charlton. Typically this little tradition takes place at the Charlton home with Monty right in the midst of the chaos. However, this year I opted to let Aimee & Monty have some quiet time while I held the annual festivity at our home. We went "Polar Express" style & dressed in our jammies. We ate lots of pizza & soda & then got to the good stuff. This year I wisened up a bit & got TWO houses...1 for the big kids & 1 for the little ones. I also opted to hot glue the houses together prior to decorating. Can I just tell you, that made all the difference in the world!

Anyway, as if the Wiseman household did not have enough candy to decorate the houses, I went & bought BAGS of candy to really allow for optimal coverage. I do believe Dyl & Sophie were more content with eating the decor, but they did manage to do a pretty darn good job. Mal & Aid were a bit disheartened at the initial progress of their house, but I hopped in & we were able to turn it around lickety-split. Both houses turned out great & we had lots of fun in the process. As you can tell, Dyl is laying under the table because fatigue was taking it's ugly toll on his demeanor...oh well, we pressed forward.

We ended the night with our other tradition of driving around while we counted lights on houses. The kids were pretty excited because we got well past 200 before I decided we were done. We ended with going to see the lightshow that the Holdmans in Cedar Hills having been doing for the last couple of years. IT is extremely impressive. Check it out at...http://www.holdman.com/christmas. I'm telling you, it doesn't get much better than this. :)