We again made gingerbread houses this year.  The only difference was that it was only Job and Lona making the houses. One year we tried to make our own gingerbread houses from scratch.  Fail.  We've used kits that we had to put the houses together.  Again those fail because they were too young.  We finally settled on preassembled kits.  Loved those from Costco and Trader Joes.  This year I found a whole village at Target.  Yes, they'll each do a house.  I forgot that Isaac pretty much has decided that the advent activities are beneath him.  He's the Grinch this year.  I gave them the kit and was a little disappointed that they had to assemble the houses themselves.  However they were old enough this time around to do it on their own.  The only draw back was the attention span for this.  I know they are older but the whole intention is for a quick fun activity not a 3 day drawn out event.  In the end though it was worth it.  I've even started thinking about baking our own gingerbread house provided that I purchase a mold.  I had no idea that they had such things until I started looking into gingerbread house cutters and found molds that can be purchased.  Hmm, maybe we can do a from scratch thing.  Then we went to a Christmas work party and the gal again made these very cute snowmen.  She graciously sent some home with us and they fit perfectly in our village.  We may have to learn how to make them.  I think they must be easy, pipe three circles of dough together and bake. Then add a chocolate chip for a hat and pipe frosting scarves, dust with powdered sugar.  We weren't quite done making our village and had to go out for something, when we returned a house was decorated.  Isaac was the only one at home, but he swore that he had nothing to  do with it.  I think that he secretly wanted to participate but it's no longer the "cool" thing to do.  Maybe next year.