Gingerbread House making

So I am going to play catch up on all the happenings in December starting with our gingerbread house party.

For the past five years my girlfriend Jess has had an annual gingerbread house/ornament exchange party in December. We have a great time. A bunch of us girls get together, usually kid-free, which is funny in itself since when we first started none of us had kids. Anyway we get together and we make gingerbread(graham cracker) houses. There is no right or wrong way to design and decorate your house. It's such a blast as each year I try to think of a new "frame" for my house. 

After our gingerbread house making we play Dirty Santa and exchange ornaments. We are to bring a $2-3 ornament and wrap it. Then we start on one end and work around the room. If you are first, you can pick any gift and you can't open it. Then the next person can either steal the first person's gift or choose their own. And so forth until all the gifts are spoken for. Usually 3-4 gifts get stolen and re-stolen but then someone will decide to end it and pick the last gift. 

Gingerbread house 2010 after some little hands already got a hold of its goodies.