Simple fun......GREAT memories!

I now can get in the Spirit of Christmas! The girls have gotten with their friends and assembled and decorated their gingerbread homes and for the first time in my life...and 2 of my best friends, the three of us got together and did the same (the pic. above is ours)...WHAT FUN! Folks may think I'm strange but I just believe in being simple, thinking of what others may not have been able to do in their own childhoods and trying to fulfill that if possible. Even as adults we CAN have fun! As I am writing this, JoBea and her friend Rachel are doing their gingerbread house. After seeing the picture of the one my friends and I finished this a.m., they are motivated to "beat" us old folks at assembling and decorating theirs. With that I told the girls if they were competing they couldn't use anything that didn't come with the kit. I am listening to them saying, "This time we are going to decorate the people BEFORE we stand them up..." over Elvis Presley Christmas music. If they haven't remembered anything else, they have remembered the lessons learned from their construction work last year. What fun it is to sit and listen to them....knowing one day they will think they are too old for this....and praying one day they will realize they were NEVER too old (just thought they were) and will want to do it again.

As for Madge and Olivia...the two hyper kids...they threw their house up in no time flat...had lots of frosting and candy left and moved on with life. They enjoy doing it...and most likely this is the only time they paid any attention to details....except for one major detail of sealing the roof. When I pointed out that fact they looked at it and said, "That's ok, we aren't going to worry about it." and off they went. It's fun to compare the one's before to the one's now and see how they have changed their strategies.

JoBea and Rachel have worked very hard, put lots of thinking into theirs (as they went along). The Elvis Christmas music helped because they actually have an Elvis gingerbread man (can you see him)!

As you can see they also put up fence post (that wasn't with the kit but I will allow it for creativity...I guess) around the place...cobblestone walk to the front entrance and also presents under the tree..I don't think you can see those very well. You think that is creative wait until you see the back of the house! I walked into the kitchen to find them with my big, really sharp knife cutting out the back door. They were making a garage for Elvis' cadillac to park. Again, they were within the limits of competition because the cardboard for the car was used in the kit to protect the gingerbread pieces. When I realized they had us beat....I told them since this was our first one ever to do, we would have to compete with their first one from last year....they would NOT accept that. Can't blame a girl for trying.

I guess their Elvis guy beat our blue eyed ,work out man with the 3 pack. I actually thought we still had a chance UNTIL they added the garage on the back....that gave them the edge on us. NEXT year we will KNOW what we are up against....the creative minds of children....and will find our place at the top!! Even tho we didn't make it to the top this year...we did fill our hearts with fun, laughter and made our own "childlike" memories that will last us forever. It's NEVER to late!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!! Start your memories today!!

GOD BLESS!!