Last weekend, to kick-off Christmas, we had a little cookie-decorating party for Alec and Louis and their friends Filip and Ebba. I thought it would be fun for them to do gingerbread houses, but the actual building isn’t really that much fun for such small children. So I prepped mini gingerbread houses for each of the children to decorate. and they were so thrilled when they came into the kitchen and found their own house, icing, and a bowl of candy to decorate with.

 The secret to these little houses is that they’re not even made of gingerbread (no-one is going to eat them anyway). I just bought whole wheat biscuits and put them together into little houses. Super easy and super super fun.

Here’s how to make them:

Supplies:

• Square biscuits – 6 for each house. I used whole wheat biscuits but graham crackers would work too.
• Sugar
• Icing – ready-made or homemade
• Candy for decorating

1. Melt the sugar in a small sauce pan, stirring constantly. When it’s brown and syrupy, it’s ready. Keep it on really low heat, so it doesn’t harden. And be careful – caramelized sugar is REALLY hot. I would do this when the children are tucked in at night and can’t get anywhere near it.
2. Make right angles out of pairs of biscuits. Take two biscuits, dip one edge of each biscuit in caramel and put them together in right angles.
3. When your right angles have hardened (just takes a minute or two), dip the free edges in caramel and put two right angles together to form the walls of the house.
4. When the squares have hardened, dip them in caramel and take the last right angles on like a roof.
5. Decorate the houses with icing, candies, almond slivers – whatever you wish! For small children, it’s best to help them spread some icing on the house, and then let them stick on the candies etc.

A cookie-decorating party is such a fun way to get into the Christmas feeling, especially for children. If you don’t have time to prep little houses, don’t let that stop you! You’ll have just as much fun with store-bought icing and ginger snap cookies. Just put on some Christmas music and hop to it! This is not the season to feel pinterest pressure, focus on the fun and being together and don’t worry too much about the details.

Also – gift ideas for toddlers and pre-schoolers and the easiest thing you will make this Christmas.