Gingerbread house masterpieces from graham crackers, milk cartons

Posted by hiccups

on December 18, 2008M at 6:13 pm

About 120 third-grade crafters at Chisholm Elementary School in Edmond met Thursday in the cafeteria to create gingerbread houses, a tradition that’s been around for years.

They spread the icing and stuck on the candy on roofs, eaves, front walkways and more. This year, quite a few of the students used the red licorice or red hots to form the letters “OU” or “Sooners.”

If you wanted to, the tradition seems easy enough to start at home, without any of the usual complex baking. At school, parent volunteers created the framework of each one in advance by sticking two pint-sized milk cartons together and gluing graham crackers across the angled tops of the cartons to make the roof and on the sides to make the walls (see photos below). Ice cream cones formed the base of the trees outside the house.

Then, in addition to the peppermints, gumdrops, m&m’s, little cookies and more, the parents handed out bowls of white icing and popsicle sticks to spread it and let the 8- and 9-year-olds go to work on the decorations. Most of the students were concentrating so hard that very few of them were eating the candy itself.

~ Lillie-Beth Brinkman

Here are some photos. Click on them to see them larger. Video is above. To see more photos after the jump, click on “more” below.