Gingerbread House Showdown!

This is the year where we expanded. We went from just the cousins, to the cousins and aunts and uncles to…Cousins, Aunts, Uncles and Besties! One of my younger cousins, has a couple of friends who don’t do much for the holidays and well we invited them to join our craziness because the more the chaotic. With that and other cousins bringing over their besties, we had a total of 35 people in my tiny house. It’s okay though because we had to make sure everyone felt welcomed, loved and appreciated that they were here with us.

Since our house theme is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you could only step in the house IF you wore something Green and CROCS. We had a lot of Grinches onesies, Grinch Shirts and socks and Grinch PJ’s. It was glorious. I did go out and purchase a microphone to start the rules and regulations of the famous Cousin Gingerbread House showdown and well since they are willing to put up with all of the chaotic family fun they are officially cousins and part of the family. Oh, did I forget to mention, we also had pets this year too. Piper our cousins cat, Belle, Buster, and Gelato.

With the amount of Grinchy people that were coming over, my mom and I redecorated our living room and kitchen to open up more space for everyone. We had three tables go across the house with tons of chairs and surrounding the house was more chairs and TV Trays. Once everyone picked their seats, houses, the hot glue gun was plugged in and the candies were placed everywhere.

The movie to start us up was of course How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We also shared our Christmas playlist with all the new cousins so they can add their favorite songs to the mix. Now, another new thing this year was the fire pit on the deck. Yes, we put a “bonfire” in the Grinches Lair, and we had a S’mores set up. It was a major hit. Thankfully, no one got hurt just extremely sticky.

Littles:

• Dog Poop Grinch
• Swiftie Grinch

Of course we showed the Grumpmaster herself and she chose her top ten favorites, who this year got a $20 Pete’s Coffee Gift Card. The next 10 got a choice of one piece of candy. The next 14 got a thumbs up and a better luck next year whipped cream pie in the face. Of course this started out as just Grandma smashing the whipped cream in our face to a full on whipped cream marshmallow food fight. Don’t worry, the furry friends were safely in the other room so they did not eat anything that they were not supposed to. It was a mess but a lot of laughter and good times. We took photos before destroying our wonderful work of arts and making a bigger mess.

I love spending time with everyone, it is nice and I feel completely lucky that I am so close with my family and friends to do so. I can’t wait to see what trouble we get into next year.

-Dezi