One of the highlights of the girls' Christmas season was their friends Christmas party. It consisted of a gingerbread building contest and a truly tacky white elephant gift exchange. The prize for winning the building contest was last picks for the gift exchange.
Team #1: Andrew, Wyatt and Bethany.
Their structure was very sound. The theme of the contest was "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". But if it had been, "Sturdiest Structure" they would have won for sure.
Team #2: Elinor, Zach, and Ben.
They knew just what they wanted to do and worked very well together.
It was a giant sleigh, complete with Santa and reindeer, flying over the town below. Spoiler alert: They won!
Now this team-- Team # 3 Cameron, Corrine & Jacob- was very interesting. They had a lot of potential. They moved their operation to the front yard in hopes of the colder temperatures helping to harden their frosting sooner. I'm just going to say it. Things went very wrong at the 45 minute mark (they hadn't been going very well to begin with). There was an incident and the whole thing collapsed.
In the end, they built a questionable scene that I'd rather not describe here. So yeah... they didn't win. It was unfortunate.
Team #4: Enoch, Audrey, and Josh. They moved outside to the backyard. This team was the dark horse of the competition. There were those who believed this team were the true champions.
They had the tallest structure and with very festive decor. Sort of a shame that they were overlooked.
Team #5. Jakob, Sariah, Savannah, and Jason...Uh... this team struggled to get traction and start building. I don't know what went wrong. Apparently, engineering skills don't necessarily translate to graham crackers and icing:)
It ended up resembling an underground house where only the roof is visible. They can't all be winners.
I blame it on the one-armed man.
Team #6 was sort of an unofficial entry-- although to be honest, their building skills were superior to many of the older teens. Just saying.
Emma, Faith, and Tristin
And I absolutely adore them!
The Chase family came over to be the guest judges.
The destruction was fast and furious. Frankly, it spared me any guilt I might have felt in throwing away perfectly good gingerbread houses. There was no guilt in throwing away crushed up gingerbread houses.
The white elephant gift exchange was perhaps the best I've seen of its kind. Instructions were given-- "the tackier the better" and I think they got the message. These "gifts" were so bad there was little to no trading. Nobody wanted anything and most of it got left here.
We did institute a couple of rules. 1) items were frozen after two trades. And 2) If Greta wanted something......you had to give it to her.
Everyone complied and everyone was happy-- especially Greta:)
Ben won an envelope of free tickets to.... nothing.
But at least they were free.
That's the level of tacky we're talking about.
Bethany gave this charming collection of the Bratt Family. They were well received.
The one-armed man brought for his gift this charming "Party like a rock star" flask. His mom wanted it out of the house. I'm sure she was delighted when he won it back and brought it home again.
Bethany's treasure she opened was a hideous purple velvet and lace stocking filled with "holders"-- trinkety little containers from the DI. She was horrified to even touch the items.
But little Greta loved them all! Including, but not limited to this trophy from the Vegas Invitational 2001.
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