Gingerbread Architecture

 

Family tradition was maintained again this year with a cousins' get-together to create gingerbread houses. Well, I think that at least one of them is a house. But they were all quite elaborate, so when I arrived to visit at Christmas, I was treated to the tour. It did require a bit of explanation to explain some of the details, but once the theme of each edifice was revealed, it was clear what was being represented with the gumdrops and M&M's. 

  

 

This is a school. Note the bell tower on top, with chocolate bell. There are some gummy students playing soccer on the playground in the front. Notice the pretzel bike rack there on the back right? It also has pretezel & M&M bikes parked at it.

 

Here is a close-up of a couple of gummie students going into the door wearing their backpacks.

 

This next edifice is a military base. The chocolate bells are the guard station.



 

Then, up on the roof, this is the solar panel to help with energy costs. Apparently at that point, the builder was distracted by something in the play room, and there aren't any more details to enjoy.

 

Now we have just a house. But, this house has a dinosaur in the yard. (I think this accessory was influenced by the dinosaur museum that had been visited the day before the Gingerbread House party.) One significant detail I enjoyed was the careful selection of the colors for the roof tiles. There are stripes of color on most parts of it that were meticulously placed. That is only significant because this builder is not quite three years old. She has great attention to detail, apparently.

 

It's a little hard to see the dinosaur, but I wanted to include this close-up. I think it was built by auntie, but it was an important part of the decor. See the long tail and blue eyes? Also, a gummie bear is riding it!

Here we have an airport. This construction manager is a little obsessed with flight. When he visits me, we always have to spend at least 30 minutes parked near the runway so we can tune in the radio to the channel that lets us listen in on the exchanges between the pilots and the control tower. That's the control tower there on the top right corner. The neat rows of gumdrops in the lower left is the parking lot. See the passengers waiting there to board on the the platform in the center of the front wall? The plane is there in the center of the picture--candy cane wing visible on the right.

 

Here is a close-up of the side of the plane. That structure in the foreground is a baggage cart--it's getting ready for loading on the plane. A lot of angst went into the plane design, apparently. Several other attempts didn't result in something satisfactory to the builder, so this was as closed at he could get. I'm really fond of the wing structure, but I'm especially a fan of the baggage cart.