The Cheery Chocolate Chalet

Kacia- Chalet (Sha-lay, which kind of ruins my alliteration, but oh well) means a cottage. I only think of it as the car, but it came up in my thesaurus search for cabin and when I found out more about the word, it exactly says what I want it to. For no other word could more perfectly describe the treasured Cheery Chocolate Chalet that Kara, Kayley, Levi and I made Wednesday evening.

It began simply enough



but we were not going to go for simple. When a Gingerbread House is only an annual thing (we did our 1st last year, but it doesn't have to be a long-standing tradition to be treasured) each imagination works full speed to take hold of this opportunity to make a little candy world.

Levi has little to do with the design usually, since he either does what we ask until he's bored or eats scraps the entire time. Usually I know he's done with his last bit because I'll hear him going "ah, ah, ahhhh?" and look over to see him dangling some Hershey's Kiss over his mouth. An "uuuh, okay" is all that he needs and down it goes. He ate a lot of candy, but what fun is making a gingerbread house to such a small child otherwise? That's the fantstical wonder to him. "Woowww, so many good things to try!!" He did help in one precious design aspect though, as you will see later.

Soon, we were in full swing, and both island and bar were littered (really) with candy or frosting or a mixture of the two. By the end, there was twice this stuff cramped onto the island. At least.

We made a back door with trim,

decorated the roof with a chimney and a little window on the wall,

and (mine and Levi's specialty) grew some evergreen trees.

Levi went to bed while we did the finishing touches, so he hasn't even seen this yet, but we had lots more work to do even after the house was done. Decorating the yard is of the best parts! In the end, our forest scene transformed the house into a land of it's own. A Cheery Chocolate Chalet land of it's own. Just what we wanted. Scroll down...

Cross the flowing, chocolate river on a graham cracker bridge to visit the little cottage nestled in the woods...

Around the back there's a door surrounded by creeping vines for when the children come in from playing in the snow.

The colorful roof was Kayley's project.On this side of the house, Kara stacked a woodpile,

that supplies wood for the firepit which Levi suggested.

The cheery flames will be fed with the help of Kara's chopping block, with ax and all.Can't you just see yourself walking up to visit now?

It is a special land we'll greatly enjoy visiting over and over this holiday season. Until we utterly destroy it and enjoy eating piece by delicious piece. Yum!