Since getting married four years ago, I've turned into a real grinch about the holidays. I love the time off, and watching the snow, and sipping hot cocoa by the fireplace and all that stuff. However, the additional family I've acquired also means more shopping, more Christmas Eve / Day travel obligations and, inevitably, more drama. The one thing that's helped keep the "spirit of Christmas" alive for me over the past couple years has really been watching our almost-three-year-old niece Emma experience Christmas for the first couple of years. For example, here's a video of the first ever Christmas gift that January and I bought for Emma.

How can you not be excited about Christmas watching something like that?

A couple of weeks ago, we offered to babysit Emma so my sister and her husband could get out of the house, enjoy a nice dinner out, and get some Christmas shopping done. The last time we watched Emma, we spent most of the time watching Yo Gabba Gabba and entertaining her with pictures on our iPhones; This time we wanted to find something a little more low-tech we could do with her, and January had the great idea of building a gingerbread house. After a quick trip to Aldi on the way to their house, we had all the supplies we needed: Graham crackers for walls, gum drops, candy canes, holiday-colored candy corns, and little chocolate soldiers. All we needed was to whip up the frosting glue and we would be good to go.

If you've never made homemade gingerbread houses before, making the glue is super easy. The ratios I've seen online vary greatly, but it's basically just powdered sugar and egg whites. I would start with two egg whites, add a cup of powdered sugar, and after mixing them together continue to add more powdered sugar until the mixture starts to get hard to stir. Once you have the right consistency, put the mess in a ziplock bag, cut off a small bit from the corner, and you'll be ready to construct your house!

Our construction process went very well, if a bit messy. After January and I took the lead on building the actual house, we set some ground rules with Emma: If she promised to not eat any of the candy while decorating, she could pick any five pieces she wanted afterwards! She did a great job following the rules, although she did quickly discover the loophole that "licking" isn't, technically speaking, the same as eating. She got a great amount of joy turning to me, after licking some icing or a candy cane and saying "Look Unkie Andy, I'm not eating!"

Emma did an excellent job, but clearly the icing mixture we put together wasn't quite strong enough to hold the heavy gumdrops we used. 

True to her word, Emma didn't eat a single piece of candy during construction, so she got to pick out her five pieces of candy which turned out to be... five gumdrops! This lead her to a new discovery: Emma doesn't like gumdrops. She took it all in stride, though, and after swapping them out for a handful of Whoppers (that's my niece!) it was off to bed. After brushing her teeth and getting her into her pajamas, we settled in for storytime with Auntie January.

The idea of having a kid of my own -- another living creature that I'm responsible for -- can be really scary to me at times. As we get closer and closer to D-Day, February 5, I take a lot of comfort in thinking about Emma and how much fun she is to hang out with. I'm sure raising a kid will have its own set of challenges and be really difficult at times, but having a litte Emma of my own is something I'm really looking forward to.