December has arrived with all the craziness, joys, and excitements that generally accompany this time of year, along with the gray and somber weather that generally remind me of March. Since the month began snow seems in favor of staying at bay, while clouds amass themselves and fill the world with a light sprinkling of rain.

This past weekend I joined my cousins for our yearly tradition of making gingerbread houses (out of graham crackers). Only, I have this random little particularity where I don’t generally actually build a house. Or any normal kind of structure.

I’m not sure if it’s because everyone else builds so much better than me so I’m intimidated, or if my creative brain doesn’t lend itself to being useful when it comes to houses…. Or if I’m simply overwhelmed at the thought of using icing to hold large amounts of graham crackers together, or maybe I enjoy the visiting aspect of the evening more than trying to out-do my creation from the year before…. But, I nearly always come up with a rather interesting piece of artwork by the end of the evening. Like the time I made what appeared to be a small box and called it a covered wagon then drew eyes on a sucker and called him the driver.

This year I ended up with a forest of poisonous mushrooms, covered with a sprinkling of snow, with a colored-stone pathway winding through the trees. To create this fantastic masterpiece I enlisted the help of some of my darling little cousins who went around to beg the needed candy from other relatives. It ended up being the most fun creation I’ve built in multiple years.

With a three story mansion, house with pillars, log cabin, and castle (complete with mote and drawbridge), going up around me, my little forest didn’t seem particularly impressive, but I was delighted with it.

One thing I’ve discovered with art and creativity is that it’s not generally useful or encouraging to compare ones art with another person’s art. We are each unique individuals and therefore we’ll have different tastes and ideas and completed projects. This goes for making snow covered forests, for blogging, for decorating the house for the holidays, and for writing books. We aren’t each other, and that’s a good thing. I hope you have a delightfully unique and fantastic week! (P.S. Only 20 days until Christmas!)

So! Have you ever made a Gingerbread House? How did it turn out?