Today is December 07, 2007 and we are now officially celebrating Hannuah. This is one of my favorite holidays as it really brings the family together and it excites kids. One of my family’s favorite Hanukkah activities is to create gingerbread houses. This is a fun activity that can be done ahead of time, or that can be done as a family activity during the Hannukah celebration.
It is a good idea to pre-bake your gingerbread panels and have all the decorating materials ready to go before your guests arrive. If you don’t want to bake your gingerbread from scratch consider buying a gingerbread house kit from your local grocer, or use graham crackers instead. Decorating items that you will need include: icing for decorating and to use as the house’s mortar, gumdrops, licorice, chocolate pieces, colored sugar sprinkles, food coloring and any other candy pieces you want to use. You may also want to pick up decorating tools to help spread, dot and swirl on icing. I like to buy the small colored icing tubes that have a decorating tip built right in. They are less messy then using a piping tube and detachable decorating tip.
To keep the mess to a minimum place a card table in an area that has linoleum. Or, if you will be doing this in a carpeted area, lay down a plastic table cloth first and then set your card table on top of it. This way if icing or candies fall on the floor you can just fold them up in the table cloth and discard them in one neat package. Before your guests arrive fill small bowls with the candy pieces and set out the icing tubes. Also keep a large tub of baby wipes near by so that sticky hands can be cleaned without having to go to the kitchen or bathroom.
In addition to family constructed gingerbread houses, your Hannukah celebration will also need to include other sweet Hannukah Jewish recipes and traditional Jewish holiday recipes. To make sure your guests don’t go into a sugar induced comma, also offer savory Jewish food recipes such as a beef brisket stew. Have a great Hannukah and I’ll see you back here next week to discuss recovering from holiday feasts.