gingerbread houses...check

One of our favorite family Christmas tradtions is making Gingerbread Houses. Of course, mom always does the hard part of making the gingerbread, cutting out the roofs and sides and backs of the houses then putting them together with royal icing while getting her fingers all messy and then having to keep refilling the icing squirter thingy, and during all that she has to calm down her freaked out child because he thinks his house is going to fall over.....but mom will always do this and go through that, because she loves making her kids happy.