The challenge

It all started last week with a provoking picture of some perfectly made gingerbread cookies in the shape of Pippi Longstocking characters. It arrived on my phone from my friend Helen who, despite her two small children causing havoc, still managed to find the time and patience to make perfect ginger bread cookies. With an attitude (probably egged on by the hip hop music coming out of my radio) I swore to defend the McWilliams name and before I knew it had entered into a challenge – who would make the best gingerbread house?

When John came home he made the perfectly fair point that the last gingerbread house we made looked more like a shed than a house and only held together long enough for us to take a picture. But with my reputation as a mother at stake (or probably more down to old fashion stubbornness) I was determined not to give up.

Sunday morning we set to work. Tage was helping.

Well, at least until he realised that the dough was quite nice to eat at which point all helping activities stopped.

Amazingly we managed to make a gingerbread house that didn’t just hold together for the photo shoot but is still looking good. It’s not exactly the finest gingerbread house in the world but we’re still proud. My sister, quite rightly, questioned the red light inside the gingerbread house (created by my bike light which was the only one I could find in a hurry). It is possible that we have created the very first gingerbread strip club.

Now we’re waiting in anticipation to see what Singer-Lundblad family´s gingerbread house is going to look like? Are the Stockholmers going beat us?

After all this work we took a coffee and hot chocolate break at café Drömkåken where the over the top decorations and live music made Christmas seem that little bit closer.