When I lived in California, I had a neighbor, who is also my bestest friend in the whole wide world, called Jody (she's still my friend! She just lives in California still and I moved to Cyprus). Jody is 74 years old now. I'm 27. We met when I was 20. We got along so well that I couldn't ever leave her house! She cooked for me almost everyday, I cooked for her a few times, and I NEVER did her dishes! She doesn't like it if you do her dishes! She used to have a ranch with cows and all. Has 3 children who are grown and live about an hour and a half from her little appartment. So she still visits family, and they visit her, but I was right next door. We used to do EVERYTHING together. Grocery shopping, paper making (I lie.. her sister, Coralie, was involved in that one, too), go stay up in the snowy mountains for new years ...Coralie was there, too. Watch movies.. put up her tree for Christmas (I don't have a picture after all these years, but it's the BEST tree you've ever seen, trust me! She puts like 5 strings of Christmas lights on so that the tree is ALL LIGHTS and THEN we put the decorations.. that she's been collecting since...if I remember well 1967? She has dates under all her ornaments and who gave them to her.. I think the pair of slippers, which is her first ornament, and the first to go on the tree, is dated 1967). AND make gingerbread houses!
Jody used to buy the kit and put the house together, and I'd decorate it with her. Well..more like eat all the frosting is what I did! One year we did this with Coralie's great-nieces, and I would eat the green frosting and Jody would pretend telling me off, and the girls had so much fun! The frosting...being green, was all over my face! I remember we also made Snickerdoodles that day. That's when I found out they are my favorite cookies! Thanks Coralie!
So with all my beautiful Christmas memories with Coralie and my dear Jody (I have to also mention Niki, Jody's Japanese Chin, the only little dog I love to death!-I'm a big dog kinda girl) and River.. Coralie's dog.. and Lola, the cat! (we are such a big family after all!), I decided this year, after a whole page of reading for you guys, to bake gingerbread people from scratch, and also make a Gingerbread House...from scratch!
This is the first gingerbread man I cut :) I got the little cutter rather than the big one, and these came out looking really cute. With the same batch I cooked the pieces for the house, too.
I thought the dough was kind of dark, but once cooked, it lightened in color.
All cute and ready to be decorated! What I liked was that after making the dough, you let it sit in the fridge for up to overnight. So between my full time (plus over time for the holidays) job and baking cookies, I had some time to rest. Under normal circumstances, I would've baked other cookies while these rested, but unfortunatelly, I'm not a robot of any kind.
Now if you remember my post The Making of: Cat Cookies, then you should also remember that, that was my first time decorating cookies. So this is my second time. So judge lightly if you may, please :)
See the top left one? I ATE HIM! He looked more like a ghost rather than a gingerbread man! So I indulged! I did different kinds to have variation. Don't mind the snowman, he's there for the other movie, Gingerbread House!
Some are even wearing scarves...with a little pin on it..
Don't mind the top left one.. he's just sad because he wasn't wearing the scarf!
And don't tell anyone...shhhhhh...but here's a little preview of my house (if I can ever put the roof together!):
I bought my supplies from Sprinkles & Sparkles
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