Gingerbread House in the cold

Friday evening, the Webmaster’s company had their annual Christmas/holiday party. So he and I went out and pretended to be grown-ups for a few hours at the Renaissance Hotel in Seattle, where we had lobster bisque from the buffet, danced, ate far too many dessert (but they had tiramisu!), and chatted with many of the Webmaster’s colleagues. We made passable adults for a few hours, but, being a mommy, I remembered to pick up a couple of elaborately decorated sugar cookies off the dessert table as treats for the kids for later.

Meanwhile, I had assembled our annual gingerbread house the night before (having learned the hard way last year just HOW important it is to let the “mortar” of a gingerbread house actually dry before decorating it), and left all the icing and candy in Auntie’s capable hands. She was watching Ane and Tad for us, and being a consummate baby-sitter, always tries to have a craft for them to do. When I bought the gingerbread house kit, I told Ane that she and Tad could do this with Auntie while Daddy and I were out. “This can be our craft!” Ane squealed in excitement.

They had a great time together.

It got done, I didn’t have to do it, and the kids had a blast. And many thanks again to Auntie for doing this craft with them. We don’t even blink twice when we leave the kids with her anymore. When the Webmaster and I got back, the kids were asleep, and I let Auntie drive home in my car (with me in the passenger seat, of course).

Now, though, I’m not sure I even want to be out driving. We’re having quite a cold snap around here – there was a little bit of snow around the Seattle area over the weekend, but it’s all freezing over now. We may not even break freezing temperatures for the rest of this week. Local weather reports say this may be the coldest snap since 1990. The high temperature is predicted to be 29 degrees today, with 19 degrees as the overnight low.

If our local school district is even delayed by a couple of hours, Tad won’t have school because they will just cancel preschool right off the bat. Ane doesn’t have school until Wednesday, so she’s not missing anything… yet. And our church’s children’s program has been postponed until next Sunday morning.

In the meantime, we have a nice fire going in our fireplace insert, which is basically warming the whole house (our house was built in 1965 and doesn’t have a furnace or a gas connection – our heat is completely electric, so the warmer we can keep the house with the fireplace insert’s radiant heat, the better off we are), I have cookie dough chilling in the fridge (Gingerbread Bears!), and if we have to stay put, we can.

And if you’re cold and can make it to our house, we have a warm fire and cookies for you – and a pretty gingerbread house to look at, too.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 12:54 am and is filed under Being Crafty, Children, Family, Life in the Pacific Northwest, School Days.
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