Super Christmas Saturday

Over the weekend we checked a couple of traditions off our Christmas list. The big one was our making our gingerbread house. Cosette was especially excited about it and was my sous chef in the kitchen this week. She helped measure, pour, mix all of our ingredients to make gingerbread. She even created a flour storm and made it "snow" in our kitchen. Singapore's first snow, if you will. Instead of cooking she calls it making. She loves to help me make things in the kitchen. And instead of calling a bakery a bakery it is makery according to her. I love my little maker. It does make the process go slower, but she is learning and getting good life skills. It's pretty awesome that she likes to do things like this with me. I hope that she continues to enjoy making in the kitchen. I know I did with my mom as a kid.
.We had our dear friend Marissa over to make gingerbread houses with us. She served her mission in our ward in NYC and while she was there we had her and her companion over to make gingerbread houses. They loved making it and we had such a good time doing it with her that we decided to make it a tradition and have her over to make them again.

Cosette was the official gingerbread house decorator. I built it with the frosting then she took over for the decorating. She is getting quite good. She took the icing bag away from me at one point and was doing it all by herself. I was super proud at that moment. She is a chip off the old block. It is wonderful seeing her learn and her ability to do things grow. She is really amazing.
Making these things is a science almost. I say that because you have to cook the gingerbread long enough that it is harder (not crispy) but hard enough to stand up on its own. I am still learning how to use my oven over here. It is weird and I know I am not doing it right, but things are getting cooked so it is kind of working. Anyway, the houses this year were not as sturdy as years past. We didn't build it on the "sand" or on the "rock" but somewhere in between (the sock? or rand?). And getting the royal icing the right consistency is a little tricky. It's a learning process every year. Our houses stood firm so it all worked out well enough.

The kids with their masterpiece.
The finished product. Cosette insisted on taking off all the foil wrappers on the chocolate candies. 
Unfortunately for Henry, he was asleep pretty much the whole time we did them. When that kid falls asleep you do not wake him up because if he has fallen asleep that means he needs it because he does not sleep well. He woke up at the end and decorated the back wall of the house.

Henry's handiwork. 
That night we attended our ward Christmas party. Guys, it was so well done. It was not anything spectacular, but it was fantastic. The primary and any children who wanted to participate put on the Nativity story. Cosette was so excited about it. She wanted to be an angel, and because I am my mother's daughter I made her an angel costume. She was so excited to go to the party in her costume. Henry decided he was going to be a dinosaur. The kids could come dressed as a angel, shepherd, or animal, any animal. I asked if dinosaur was okay and they said "yes!". They said that there is at least one kid every year who dresses as a dinosaur. We were just keeping with tradition.

Henry kind of stole the show. He got up there and ran around. It was pretty funny and I am grateful that everyone else thought it was funny.


My favorite part of the program was watching all the angels sing Silent Night. Seeing Cosette singing it brought tears to my eyes. I'm such a mom.




The program continued with one family singing the Twelve days of Singapore Christmas. It was great, five durians! I will have to track down the words and share them on here. Then we sang more carols and then Santa Claus came to visit! Our Santa crawl is off to a decent start.
That was our super Christmas Saturday, and now I need a really long nap. I am exhausted from doing it all.

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