Rustic gingerbread house - notes on making it with a 10 piece cookie cutter set

It is 10 years since I made my first gingerbread house and I am still filled with pride and wonder when I make one.  I am always a little amazed they don't collapse though not so anxious about them as I used to be.  I was really happy to make quite a different gingerbread house this year.  This little stone house with fudge roof tiles, a chimney and front yard, to paraphrase a friend's reaction, is somewhere I would love to live.

Previous Gingerbread houses:

Before discussing making my gingerbread house this year, I have collated photos of gingerbread houses I have made in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2018.  You will see that after doing a large one the first year, I settled on a favourite template for small gingerbread houses.  This was useful, especially in the years I made extra ones for community club raffles.  I used either the 2013 dough or the Primrose Bakery's vegan gingerbread house dough but have lost the latter recipe.  And I tried both traditional royal icing with icing sugar or vegan royal icing with aqua faba.  They all worked well as did the decorations.  Sylvia's eyes lit up with joy at these houses decorated with lollies.  

I wrote posts on the first two years but then got too busy to write about the next two years of baking, despite best intentions.  So this year I am determined to write up what we did so I don't need to wonder how we made the Christmas trees in 2018 and scratch my head in bewilderment when I look back on notes like "when putting gingerbread house together put a tin in and a texta to keep it the right size".  This is a lengthy post because I find detailed notes help me, especially when it can be a year or five before making another gingerbread house.  I hope others might find it useful too.  If you want a guide on how to make a gingerbread house, I suggest you also check out my step by step instructions on my first gingerbread house.

The gingerbread house cookie cutter set:

Last year I bought a Jolly and Joy 10 piece gingerbread house cookie cutter kit (similar to this kit on Amazon).  Above is the illustration of the cutters.  And a note that the finished size is 17cm high x 14cm deep x 10cm wide.  I didn't have time to try it last year but I had more time this year and wanted to try the cutter set for when life gets busier.  It really helped to make it easier to cut out the house parts.  In the past I have used measurements to draw up and cut out templates out of baking paper.  I did not miss this at all.

Planning:

I had decided to avoid the bright colours of the previous houses, meaning that I used less lollies and more muted colours.  I had ideas with the flake chocolate bars and the stick pretzels of using them for window ledges, corners and pathways.  Sylvia really wanted a pile of logs in the yard.  While we used a lot of jersey caramels for the roof, we used no pretzel sticks and less than 2 flakes for the corners of the walls.

My gingerbread house timetable:

• Friday: made the dough (using this tried and true recipe) and wrapped it in clingfilm in the fridge
• Saturday: cut out the pieces, used a knife to do the stonework and baked pieces.
• Sunday: iced the stonework (with icing sugar), made royal icing, piped vines, assembled the house and finished decorating.

What is needed to make this gingerbread house:

Ingredients:

• 1 batch of my gingerbread recipe*
  
• 4 egg whites and approximately 700-800g icing sugar to make royal icing*
  
• Extra icing sugar for sprinkling*
  
• 2 x 150g packets of jersey caramels (we had a few leftover)
• 2 flake chocolate bars
• green food dye for vines
• sprigs of rosemary for garden and tufts of grass
• 2 currants for eyes if you want to build a snowman (or an edible marker)

*Notes on ingredients:

• To make the darker gingerbread I followed Twigg Studio's lead and substituted 1/4 cup of cocoa for flour in the gingerbread recipe.
• I did see some notes about using vegan gingerbread so the gingerbread can sit at room temperature but this has never been a problem for me.  I sometimes finds eggs help gingerbread texture but my experience of vegan gingerbread houses is that 
  
• I needed a food processor for the gingerbread dough but next time I want to try Twigg Studios vegan gingerbread recipe which is made in a large saucepan.
• If you want a completely vegan gingerbread house, as well as vegan gingerbread, I have made vegan royal icing with aqua faba. You will also have to substitute for the flakes and caramels but you can just bake some extra pieces of gingerbread in tiles and logs if you need or use grissini (crispy bread sticks) or nuts.
  
• Icing sugar is also known as confectioners sugar or powdered sugar.
  
• Icing is also known as frosting.

Equipment:
(in addition to the usual bowls, spoons, knives, measuring cups and measuring spoons etc that most bakers will have)

• Food processor or large saucepan to make gingerbread
• Gingerbread house cookie cutter set (or cut templates on baking paper)
• Ruler to measure the thickness of the house pieces 
• Sharp knife for stonework
  
• Electric beaters to make royal icing
• Piping bag (preferably 2)
• 2 piping tips - one fine for green icing and one medium for white icing. 
• 1 cake board or flat plate.  My cake board is 30 x 30cm.
  
• Straight edged glasses or unopened tins of food to hold up walls while assembling the house
  
• Lots of time and patience
  
  

This photo collage shows the steps it took to make the gingerbread house over 3 days.  I wanted to make a rustic or woodland style of gingerbread house and looked at online ideas when planning.  I fell in love with a gingerbread house at Twigg Studios.  They had templates and a vegan recipe but most of all it was the presentation of the darling little British cottage that inspired how I did mine, including the stonework.  I did the jersey caramel roof I had done in 2018.  More details below.

Cutting and baking the parts of the house:

The Twigg Studios suggested using a knife or spoon to make the stone imprints in the walls before baking the gingerbread.  I was dubious but tried it on one piece and planned to have it on the inside if it looked wrong.  But it was good.  The only problem was that I cooked one of the walls without any stone imprints.  I got it confused with the roof shape.  I realised before it came out so once it was out of the oven I carved some stone shapes into it as best I could but it is easy to spot because it looks so different and was too hard to to the edges..

Notes on cutting and baking:

• I rolled out the dough between two sheets of baking paper.
• It was ok to add patches so that the dough was rolled out enough for some of the bigger pieces - the joy of rustic stone work is that it doesn't have to be perfect.  
• I used a ruler to check the thickness of the dough after I cut it and if it seemed too thick I rolled it more and used the cookie cutters again.  
• I decided the chimney wasn't high enough so I added more height by lightly placing cookie cutters on the rolled out dough and extending it to be a bit taller.  
• I cut out a door but decided it did not look right.  So we ate it.
• I measured out a small yard and used some leftover dough with rustic edges to be the fence.  I also cut out a gate with some criss-cross but it did not show very clearly.  I also made a stone footpath, which was too wide but worked anyway.
• Cutting the stonework before the dough was baked was a lot of detailed work but it meant very little work was needed on the walls once they were baked.  The stone is not meant to be uniform because stones are not all the same size.  I cut the stonework once the dough was rolled out, cut and on the baking tray.
  
• I regretted cutting the door and windows out of the front wall before moving it to the baking tray.  The door and windows got wonky when I moved the dough.  Yet again, the rustic nature of the house was forgiving of imperfections.
  
  

Stonework and vines

The stonework that I cut looked quite good, albeit a little like an Easter Egg.  The stonework looked far more realistic once I rubbed icing sugar over the walls.  It even looked ok on the wall I had cut after I baked it.  I made some royal icing, took a bit out into a separate bowl to dye, and piped the vines on the walls before they were assembled into a house. 

Notes on stonework and vines:

• It is really satisfying to rub icing sugar over the walls to make the stones stand out but it is messy.  My fingers were sticky and I was glad I put a tea towel under the gingerbread pieces so it was easier to clear up after it.
• My mum had told me that pure icing sugar is best for royal icing but I had forgotten and bought the soft kind that has a bit of cornflour in it.   
• Royal icing is pretty robust.  I had it out of the fridge for quite a few hours after I made it and covered it with a tea towel (or you can use clingfilm or beeswax wraps).  It kept for a few hours in the bowl and also in the piping bag.
  
• In my head the vines were to be quite a dark or muted green.  My dye made a brighter green than intended but I think it worked.  
• I used a thin writing piping nozzle and a separate piping bag for the vines so I could leave it aside while I assembled the house in case I needed to do any extra piping later (which I didn't).
• While the icing sugar on the stonework looked great, it also made it harder for the royal icing to stick to the gingerbread. 
• By the time I was doing the stonework I was tired and only did it on two walls.
• I also made a half-hearted effort at piping some snow in the windows but didn't quite get the sense of snow drift I was aiming for.
  
  

Assembling the house:

Assembling the pieces of gingerbread to make a house is always a nerve wracking exercise.  One of the reasons it is great to use lollies is that they cover a multitude of imperfections.  Often the pieces don't quite fit together and a length of licorice, candy cane or marshmallow can be placed over some thick icing to draw attention from it.  I expected mine to fit ok thanks to the cookie cutter kit.  Even so, I was still worried if the gingerbread would hold up, despite being a tried and true recipe.  It seemed easier than it should have been with the walls seeming sturdy and standing up quite easily after the first wall without much support.

• I used a medium piping nozzle for the remaining white royal icing.  I really liked the advice on sweetams cookie art to mix royal icing at different consistencies for different parts of the house.  The thick royal icing worked well in the assembly phase.
• When I was handling the walls and roof pieces I could feel that they were fairly sturdy.  I didn't worry as much as in my previous 2018 gingerbread house when I lost track of measurement of the butter and had to wing it with a bit more flour to get the right dough consistency.
• My house stuck together well but I was still alert to check that walls weren't slowly falling over or the roof sliding down from its position.  I had some glasses on hand to prop it up with if needed.
• When assembling a gingerbread house there is the moment when I need to decide whether the side walls sit outside the front and back walls or inside them.  After trying to decide which is right I have found it depends on your pieces and the best way to know is to put your pieces together without icing.  I piped a line of icing and stood up my first wall (the back) with straight edged glasses either side.  Then I propped up the side walls and checked how the roof would sit on it to check it had a decent overhand on both the front and sides (though with roof tiles it is easier to get more overhand on the sides.)  In this case on the corner I had the side wall as the outer corner where the sides and back/front joined.
• I decided not to use the door but you could prop a door open or pipe the outline with royal icing.  Sylvia and I also discussed using pretzel sticks to make a door, which we might try another time.
• Once the house is together you can't see the tops of the walls well under the roof overhang, so bear this in mind when decorating.
• I used flake chocolate bars to cover all the icing on the corners where the walls met and some icing usually is visible on the outside.  This had to be done fairly quickly after placing the walls together.  I cut my flakes to be thinner logs but they did crumble easily and some I had to add in pieces.  In hindsight I wish I had had the flakes further up the sides of corners, and maybe should have tried this after I could check it when the roof was on.
• I haven't done a garden before but it was fairly easy to put up the fences and use icing to stick down the path and then spread a bit of icing around the path.  I used some ends of rosemary to make plants down the sides of the garden.  These worked well and were easy to stand up because I crowded them in a little and they had the fence to lean on.
  
  

Preparing the roof tiles:

I had decided to use jersey caramels for the roof tiles, perhaps because I liked this part of my last gingerbread house.  We usually get them at Woolworths supermarket so we did not get them at Coles supermarket when we were there.  We went to Woollies where we had a few other bits to buy.  But they did not have any jersey caramels.  So we had to return to Coles which had smallish bags and buy two.

• It was sticky work slicing up the jersey caramels with a sharp knife.  They were cut as thin as possible and moulded to be thinner and a bit larger with our fingers (and a bit of water to keep our fingers damp so they did not get so sticky).  It is good to have some slight variation in sizes.  We did not use the white in the middle. 
• If you prefer not to use caramels, you could also use flaked almonds or bake individual tiles of gingerbread and stick these on.  In the past I have also piped on tiles and you could try cutting tiles into the gingerbread roof piece before baking it.

Adding the roof tiles:

• Make sure you have the chimney attached before doing the roof tiles. 
• It is easier to attach the roof tiles if they are quite thin.  I just piped a line of icing to stick on each row of tiles.
• Start at the bottom of the roof and have each row of tiles overlapping the row below.  
• I had my bottom row of tiles overhand the roof a bit.  If your roof pieces are unevenly placed so one side of roof is lower than the other, you could have one bottom row and tiles lower than the other to even it up.
• Try not to have the roof tiles too uniform.  This is rustic imperfections. 
• Don't worry too much if the tiles look like one big mass.  Once the icing sugar is sprinkled that makes the shape of each tile clearer.
  
  

Adding snow and the finishing touches:

It is so satisfying when it begins to look like a house and you just need lots of snow to cover any imperfections and make it look wintery and festive.  

• Start from the top.  I piped royal icing (aka snow) on the top of the chimney, where it met the roof and also along where the roof pieces joined at the peak.
• I have done drippy icing (like icicles) around the edge of the roof before and I think I might have used a thinner pipe nozzle for this.  I found my drips quite thick and used my fingers to thin out a few.  I think a medium consistency of the royal icing might have helped thee roof edges as well as the chimney and top of the roof.
• I started assembling the house with a bowl of royal icing made quite stiff from 3 egg whites.  Next time I might start with two egg whites so I can then make some softer icing for the snow decoration.  It might help with the dripping edges of the roof and go further.  I did not have enough icing to go around the edges of all the roof but liked the roof tiles so just piped a few drips along the roof.  I would have also liked a bit extra for the windows and fences.
• I ran out of icing before the cake board was covered with snow so I made another batch of royal icing that was quite soft and I could easily use a spoon to spread it over the board.
• When I made my second batch of royal icing I was tired and didn't wash out the royal icing bowl.  In my weariness I cracked open an egg and put the whole lot in the bowl - white and yolk.  The yold was whole so I tipped it out and checked there was no yolk before adding an egg white.
  
• I wanted some rosemary trees outside the walls but also did not want to cover too much of the stonework.  Next time I might leave them out as they did not have enough snow to stand up (and this is where I could have had a hump of thicker royal icing to help them stand.  I liked the little clusters of very short cut rosemary leaves to be like grass poking through the snow.  If I had had more snow to pipe at the base of the house, I could have tried to have some of this rosemary "grass" along the lower edges of the walls.
• I made a snowman out of the royal icing.  On my first go I found it looked a bit like Frosty the Snowman melting on a warm day.  So I started again and this time kneaded more icing sugar into the royal icing to make it stiffer.  This worked better.  The arms were made of bare rosemary sticks and the eyes made of currants.  Later I thought I could have used my icing pen (edible marker) to draw on the face and buttons.  I might have been able to make a hat out of a mini oreo and slice of thick licorice but I was really trying to not buy a bag of lollies that would leave me with lots of leftovers.  Maybe a chocolate melt for the brim and some smaller melts stacked up on top for the hat.  I need to think about it.  I hope to do a snowman again.
• I didn't do any Christmas trees but I think we did them like in this gingerbread house recipe.  They pipe icing spikes in rows starting at the bottom onto an ice cream cone.  Maybe next time.
• Last thing to do is a sprinkle of icing sugar for the fresh layer of snow.  I find a little mesh tea strainer helps sift a little icing sugar.  Everything looks better with a sprinkling of snow!  They you can step back and admire your work - or take photos and send to everyone! 
  
  

Postscript 

I really loved this gingerbread house.  People commented that it looked European.  However it also reminded me of our local bluestone cottages in Victoria.  I am quite fond of them as my best friend in primary school lived in one.  Sylvia loved it because it was a little like a Taylor Swift cabin in the woods.  I felt a bit more creative with this gingerbread house and feel I would like to continue to make my own changes when I next make one. 

I had planned to take the gingerbread house to my parents' place at Christmas.  Then I found that my niece Ashy had already given my mum a gingerbread house that she had made.  It seems that one gingerbread house is enough for any home.  Sylvia told me she was not keen on eating our gingerbread house and I just could not face eating it alone.  Making and sharing it is more fun than the eating.

Then I heard that my next door neighbour had covid at Christmas and was holding a Christmas dinner with her family a few days later.  She is lovely and does amazing work on our shared garden.  I offered her the house for their Christmas dinner and was pleased she accepted.  She has grandkids who would really appreciate it.  I saw her after her Christmas dinner with her grandson.  When he heard I had made the gingerbread house he gave a delighted smile and told me that he loved the caramel roof tiles.  Although I had encouraged my neighbour to have her family break the roof of the gingerbread house with a spoon - it is so much fun - the kids decided they didn't want to break it.  I was just happy hear they they enjoyed it.

More gingerbread recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

• Black cat chocolate gingerbread 
• Gingerbread biscuits - bush shapes
  
• Gingerbread house 
• Gingerbread houses (small) with vegan royal icing
• Gingerless gingerbread Christmas tree  

Interesting and useful gingerbread links on the internet:

• Dessert Advisor: gingerbread house history, gingerbread house records and homeless reflections
• Twigg studios - template and how to make a rustic country gingerbread house (vegan)
• Under a Tin Roof woodland gingerbread house recipe and how to 
• Gingerbread journal: patterns, tutorials, recipes etc 
• Sweetambs cookie art: Utimate guide to royal icing (they use meringue powder but I prefer egg whites)
  
• This Old House: 99 amazingly crafted gingerbread houses
  
• Good Housekeeping - 55 simpler gingerbread houses

Christmas Day 2023: food and presents

Today is Boxing Day.  I am too tired for more socialising and sales.  It is just a lazy day on the couch with the lights shining on the Christmas tree.  So I am taking the time to share some photos of Christmas Day.  To start with, here is our breakfast.  (The gingerbread house is for show, not part of our meal.)

Breakfast for E and me is pretty much what we always have had.  I baked overnight sourdough cranberry nut rolls to eat with swiss cheese and cranberry sauce.  To drink I squeezed some orange juice and added soda water.  Sylvia went off piste and toasted some Eggo waffles that she topped with ice cream, chocolate fudge sauce and festive sprinkles.

I then drive to my parents place.  When I left Melbourne it was pouring rain but as I got to Geelong the rain dried up and I could turn off my windscreen wipers and demisters.  The presents were under the tree and I wasn't the last one there.

Once my sister arrived with the platters, we started nibbles and my dad gave out the presents.  My nieces went home for jumpers but I took mine off as it wasn't as cold as it had been at home.  My sister Susie's dog, Banjo looks very cute outside the window in his Christmas jacket in the above photo.

This platter put together by my sister Fran was spectacular.  It was a great mix of popcorn, cherries, berries and maltesers as well as french onion dip, camembert and quince paste to serve on crackers.  She also had hummus, rice crackers and goats cheese on another plate.

Then it was time to set the table with candles, baubles, salt and pepper, serviettes, crackers and cutlery.  My brother Andy's British house guests came over for Christmas lunch a long way from home.  I think my family was disappointed we could not give them a warm Christmas day but at least my mum could serve a hot roast dinner with pudding and desserts.  (Others in the family bring contributions to the dinner.  As usual, I bought some nut roast.)

Here is my Christmas dinner: nut roast, roast potato, roast pumpkin, cauliflower cheese, peas and chutney.  It was delicious.  Sylvia had her lunch with her dad at my place but my mum put together a leftover roast dinner to take home to them.

When I was young we just had plum pudding with custard for Christmas.  Now we have a tyranny of choice when it comes to desserts.  I passed on the pavlova because I do not find it as exciting as others.  Besides there are many sweets on offer that I would prefer to eat: toblerone cheesecake, caramel tart, chocolate ripple cake and, of course, plum pudding with custard.

Sylvia made these cute Pesto Christmas trees using puff pastry.  She found a video by shewillevolve on Tik Tok.  Sylvia got quite good at folding them into tree shapes.  And they tasted great.  She made so many that we had some on Christmas eve, some yesterday, some today and still have them in the freezer.  Next year I we want to try them with Vegemite instead of pesto!

This photo is of Christmas leftovers.  It is one of the best things about a big Christmas feast.  The nut roast is my leftover that I brought home from lunch.  My brother and sister who love nut roasts were not there so I had even more left than usual.  My mum sent us some cheesecake, caramel slice, plum pudding and roast dinner.  Sylvia added some of her creamy mushroom pasta to her roast dinner.

When I got home at 6pm Sylvia and E had not had their gingerbread pudding with butterscotch sauce.  They were quite full from lunch and had been intending to eat it later.  It ended up being me and Sylvia who ate it in the evening after E had gone home.  It is very nice but not as special as my mum's Christmas pudding.

Here are some of our Christmas presents with my jumper that I wore in the morning when it was cold.  Who'd have thought the first year I bought a Christmas jumper was the year it was so cold I could justify wearing it.  (I got my own child labour involved in it and asked Sylvia to cut off the bells which were too much for me.)  I got a book and some chocolate and a parmesan grater but my best present is a voucher for fondue in Zurich (stay tuned ...)  Sylvia also got some travel money as well as candles, body mists, Grinch socks, miniature pizza and groceries, a jewellery box and gingerbread shortbread.

I was excited to find a Moon Chart for Sylvia.  We used to have a moon chart on the wall of student households and would check the moon.  Sylvia loves the moon so I am sure she will enjoy checking its cycle.  She also got the cute floofy dinosaur, cactus pot, a snakeskin agate necklace and vanilla incense in the below picture.

I will finish with a reflection on the festive season.  This year I've been listening to the Band Aid Do They Know It's Christmas single.  I loved that song as a kid.  Now, especially in light of some of the world events this year, it strikes me as uncomfortably colonial.  Band Aid was about raising money for famine victims in Ethiopia.  In the 1980s we all admired Bob Geldolf for his passion and generosity.  Reading about the haste in which the song was cobbled together might explain why today it seems it would be more appropriate to call it 'Why should they know it's Christmas?'  It seems so patronising to pity the starving kids because "they don't have snow in Africa at Christmas time" and they don't know about Christmas.  It shows how much attitudes have changed that we no longer assume everyone in the world celebrates Christmas, even in our own country.  Like so many religions, Christianity values treating all people well and working towards peace.  And so I wish you all peace and goodwill of the season.

More posts from past Christmases at Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:

• Christmas day presents and pudding (2011) 
  
• Christmas day food, presents and quicklinks (2013) 
• Christmas day food and reflections (2015) 
• Christmas day food, reflections and quicklinks (2016)
• Christmas day food, presents and random links (2017) 
• Christmas - cheesmas tree, food, presents and random thoughts (2018)  
• Christmas eating 2019 (including Coburg Night Market)
• Christmas eating (2020) 
• Christmas In My Kitchen (2021)
• Stuffed Tofurkey and Nutroast for Christmas day (2022)
  

Christmas in Melbourne: trees, street art, lights

It is Christmas Eve and I am so glad to have finished all the baking and dishes so I can finally sit down and catch the rest of the Carols by Candlelight on the telly (on a wet night).  I had planned to write a few more festive posts but as often happens, the time has flown by with lots to do.  So here are some Christmas photos I have taken around Melbourne.  The top photo is a festive cockatoo on the Coburg Library window.

I liked this 'Call Santa Here' sign on the back of the Telstra phone boxes.  Telephone boxes often look neglected and forgotten so it nice to see them looking more fun.  This one is in the Victoria St Mall in Coburg.

A fun festive window display in Brunettis in Carlton.  Lots of cute gingerbread houses.

I visited a friend who finished her chemistry PhD and she showed me how they do Christmas trees in the Chemistry School.  The colours of the liquids in the flasks are so vivid!

When we went to see the Bluey Myer Christmas Windows (that I have posted about), it was nice to check out other city Christmas decorations.  I always love the Royal Arcade decorations.  It was good to see them in fine form with a traditional Christmas tree and a macaron Christmas tree.

While in the Royal Arcade, we went to Spellbox where you can peek into a miniature room.  It was so lovely that it was decorated for Christmas.

We love Barkly Square (fondly referred to as Squarkly Bear) in Brunswick.  I liked the way they made their name into a Christmas tree.

This is our Christmas tree that we put up about a week ago.  It smells so good.  A couple of new ornaments this year are a jar of Vegemite and a bauble with Indigenous designs on it.

As well as visiting the Coburg Night Market, we went to the Christmas Market at the German Lutheran Trinity Church in East Melbourne.  There were a lot of people in a small space but it was very congenial with a few nice craft stalls. 

We queued to go into the little church hall where they were selling pretzels, gingerbread houses and crafts.  I was amused by the guy behind me in the queue who was asking why the place wasn't bigger.  The church and hall are beautiful bluestone buildings from the Nineteenth Century when the population of Melbourne was considerably smaller.

I had a Sommer Gluhwein.  It was cool and delicious with some peaches in it.  The choir had finished so we watched St Nicholas arrive and then went to purchase some dried flowers and fancy salt.

Last year I enjoyed looking at the Sydney Road Festive Art on Windows.  I was delighted to see it was back this Christmas.  This Jolly dinosaur with a pizza and a Christmas tree was one of my favourite artworks.

I had hoped to get together a post on the fun festive artworks photos but as I have run out of time, I have a collage of some of the fun pictures of festive cats, koalas and even Santa on a motor bike.

I loved this yarn bombing Christmas manger scene at the intersection of Blyth St and Sydney Rd.  I am not sure I have ever seen a manger scene with a pregnant Mary so it is quite unusual.  The wise men had great patterns for their robes and the shepherds had cute little sheep with them.  Such imaginative fun with these bollards.

We had a drive around Coburg to see Christmas lights one night.  This house on Shaftsbury Street is always amazing with so many lights and decorations.

The busiest house lights we saw was in Molesworth Street which had been featured in The Age newspaper article on the 10 best Christmas light displays on homes in Melbourne.  I loved the little boy who was offering candy canes.  These impressive lights often have a bucket for donations which is difficult in these cashless times but it was good to see details to donate to their cause back at home.

The last couple of days I have been busy with a gingerbread house project.  It was made easier by a cookie cutter set and the idea of creating stonework on the walls.  I will post more about it after Christmas.  Meanwhile I wish you a Merry Christmas tomorrow for those who celebrate!

Bluey in Myer Christmas Windows 2023

Yesterday in the car I heard John Kerr, the designer of Myer Christmas Windows. talk about this year's window display.  He said that so far this year there have been 1.8 million people view the windows.  Fair enough!  But I was surprised to hear there have been 2 hour queues to see the Bluey's Christmas display.  When Sylvia and I went to see the windows, we didn't have to queue at all.  It was a quiet day because it was hot, rainy and windy,

This year theme is kids' favourite cartoon character 'Bluey' from the Aussie tv show.  Each window shows a moment in Bluey and her family's Christmas day.  Some of the moments are taken straight from the cartoon series Christmas specials.  The top photo is:

Window 1: Hooray it's Christmas.  Bluey and family are opening their presents in front of the tree on Christmas morning.  Bandit Heeler (dad) and his brother Stripe each get a World's Best Cook apron, Nana gets a "Hang on I'll just get my glasses" t-shirt and Blue gets a new toy called Bartlebee.

Window 2a: Christmas Cooking.  The family is preparing Christmas food in the kitchen.  Here they are making mince pies.  The pavlova is on the kitchen bench - not in the picture.

Window 2b: Christmas Cooking.  While the parents cook and Nana checks the fridge, the kids are on the floor playing with a doctor set that I assume was one of the presents.

Window 3: Christmas lunch.  The family sit and eat lunch together.  Bluey's cousins Socks and Muffin are pulling crackers.  The plates are piled high with salad, corn on the cob, mushrooms, ham, mince pies and Uncle Stripe cooks sausages on the BBQ.

Window 4a: Christmas Swim.  Nana watches Bingo and Muffin in the pool with floaty rings and Socks on a inflatable pizza.  Meanwhile Chill (mum) and Aunty Trixie chat over a drink and chips.

Window 4b: Christmas Swim. On the side of the pool, Uncle Stripe is pumping up a desert island inflatable, while Bandit and Bluey look after the BBQ.

Window 5: Beach Cricket. The Heeler family heads to the beach where they play beach cricket with the Labrador family, while Bingo does a handstand and Socks makes a sand castle.

Window 6: Merry Christmas.  Bandit and Chili sit behind Bingo and Bluey on the steps of their Queenslander house that is glowing with Christmas lights.

The Bluey fun does not finish with the window displays.  Inside the front door is an invitation to go up to level 6.

On level 6 is Bluey's house where you can go inside and wander about.  As you will see by the all the parked prams, it is popular with little kids. 

We didn't go in.  Instead we went past this Bluey Christmas photo opportunity, which Sylvia would have loved when she was younger, and onto the decorations and the giftorium.

Bluey is such a great show and it is really fun to see what they have done with it at Myer this year.  Even the elevators have Bluey and family on them.  The Myer Christmas Windows are showing until 6 January so if you haven't seen them, you still have plenty of time.

Myer Christmas Windows
Myer Department Store
314-366 Bourke Street, Melbourne CBD
7.30am to 10pm, 12 November 2023 until 6 January 2024