Merry Christmas!

So a very merry Christmas to everyone out there!  I know I am a few days behind, but you know how the holidays are!  Plus, we have been dealing with some illness here in our household, so I was unable to get to some posts I promised (sorry!).  Hopefully all will be forgiven??
Any-who, I did make a gingerbread house, but unfortunately, due to me feeling under the weather, I will only be posting the finished product with a few tips, instead of a tutorial.  It took all the effort I could muster to just put the darn thing together.  I just wasn't in the mood to document the whole thing, also.  If you want the recipe and full directions, visit http://www.marthastewart.com/.  That's where I got my recipe.  So here we go!!

All of my pieces baked and ready to go.  I actually used half of the recipe and it made a decent sized house.  I'm not into constructing a large house, so this worked perfectly for me.  Also, I had plenty of dough left to make plenty of gingerbread men for dunking in hot apple cider (since the dough is dense, they can be pretty hard).

Instead of icing to "hold" the house together, I followed Martha's idea for using a sugar syrup.  It works really well, though it hardens soooo quickly, I had to be really quick to assemble the pieces.  But once they are together they don't move.  Just be careful...it's HOT!

And the finished product:

I used almond slices for the roof (starting at the bottom to get the "stacked" effect), and added batting for the snow, though you could use cotton candy to make the whole thing edible! 
I was pretty happy with the results and it looks cute on our little shelf, especially at night when I stick a little electric candle inside and the light glows out the windows!
I hope next year you can be inspired to make a creation of your own.  And I hope I will be feeling better and can get even more creative!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!