Almost every year we get together as a family to make gingerbread houses.  It is a tradition that we started when my children were small and my younger brothers were just old enough to help.  It has turned out to be quite the ordeal.

This year however, we made a little twist to our tradition.  We went into the way back files and pulled out a tradition from my youth and we decided that instead of gingerbread, we would make a sugar cube castle.  This is such a sweet memory of mine.

 

 

 My parents, siblings, and their significant others all came over to help.  Some helped and some watched Christmas Vacation on T.V…. and some of them sat and played apps on their new phones.  Regardless, we all had fun. 

The idea of sugar cube castles came from the inner workings of my dad’s mind.  We would spend days making them when I was younger.  We would map out the floor plan, cement it with strong frosting and decorate the life out of it with candy.  Sometimes we would keep them and other times, we would give them away.  Either way, it was just a huge treat for us to create them. 

 My sweet dad certainly takes his time and really thinks out every color, detail, cube placement and candy choice.  He truly has the heart of a 6 year old. 

 I was on the ball enough to get the sugar cubes and the frosting, but I lacked the where-with-all to purchase candy.  Thank heavens I am one of THOSE moms that doesn’t let her kiddos gorge themselves on Halloween candy. It came in handy when I had to raid the Halloween bucket for the remaining candy there.  It came in extremely handy.

Hopefully this, and the traditional gingerbread homes will stay in the memories of my kidlets and they will continue to enjoy this as they grow older.