Christmas Date 2009

Matt and I have a Christmas tradition of having a "Christmas Date" every year. This tradition started accidentally. When we were dating, we always had extra time off around Christmas. That combined with a need to go to OKC to the mall for Christmas shopping led to usually planning a special day to spend together around Christmas. We've spent our date doing various things over the years including ice skating, seeing Trans-Siberian Orchestra, visiting Christmas light displays, going to the movies and eating out. Last year was a busy time with Matt being new at his job and my graduation, so we just went to the Melting Pot for dinner one night. I look forward to our date every year and hope it's a tradition we continue.

This year, I took charge of planning our date, and had everything worked out. But when I had my wreck, our plans changed because we needed to go car shopping the day I had planned our date, so things got moved around and split up a little. Our plan for this year's date, was to go to the Philbrook museum's festival of trees, eat lunch at a new restaurant and make a gingerbread house. The way it worked out best after adding car shopping to the mix was to celebrate Christmas and our new car by going to dinner at our favorite restaurant the day we bought our car. That following day, we went to the Philbrook since that Sunday was the last day for the exhibit. We enjoyed walking around the museum looking at all the decorated trees. They also had a gingerbread house exhibit that various schools and church groups made. We're hoping to visit the Philbrook's festival of trees every year.

The next weekend we dedicated to making our gingerbread house. Matt and I enjoy watching the Food Network challenges together, and during the Christmas season, they usually have some gingerbread house competitions which are fun to watch. That gave us the idea to try making one for ourselves. I bought a book with different designs and templates. Matt and I went through it together and decided which one we wanted to make. While he was out of town last week, I did most of the prep work including buying the ingredients, making the dough, rolling out and cutting the pieces, and baking them. By Saturday, we were ready to begin the construction. We were both nervous that it was all going to fall apart and Matt mentioned there might come a time when we would have to break out the graham crackers. We took pictures of our progress because we weren't sure how far we would get before we gave up.
I was thankful Matt took charge of the construction because I saw all the random pieces and had no idea how to put them together.

Sides are up

Now we have a roof!

Roof all decorated for Christmas. This is where we stopped Saturday. Making a gingerbread house is a process that requires lots of patience while waiting for the icing to dry.

I spent some of Sunday and Monday morning finishing it up.

Side view

Other side view with the chimney

And the back

We were both surprised at how well it turned out. It was a fun family project to do together. Rhapsody even joined in on the fun. She stood under the table staring up at Matt the whole time he was trimming the pieces and putting them together, hoping he'd drop some gingerbread for her. I did underestimate the amount of time and preparation required for making a gingerbread house, but it's another tradition I'd like to continue.