Eastman House of Gingerbread

We always make it to see the gingerbread houses at the fabulous George Eastman House and this year was no exception. We enjoyed the experience just a little bit more this year because we were almost the only ones there, so there was no need to rush ahead or wait for people to move out of the way to get an eyeful of the houses. Here are some of my favorites:

I am no purist, but I do have certain standards: I don’t particularly care if the creation is a house, for example, but I do really want the use of the gingerbread to be significant. All those crazy cake shows have proven to us that you can do anything with gooey sticky icing, right? but I want to see the gingerbread construction. For me, the winner was this one by a Girl Scout Troop (I don’t know what this exhibit would do without Girls Scouts, actually–they do more than sell cookies, that’s for sure):

In addition to avoiding crowds, our visit coincided with a real live organist playing Christmas carols–what a treat! In fact, if we had stuck around, we could have met Santa, too, but I am a scrooge, so we went on our merry way.

Since this is the only time in the year I get to the Eastman museum, I make the kids walk with me through all the art galleries, too. As we were looking at an exhibit celebrating Rochester’s Anniversary, Lily said, “Hey! That’s us!” And, indeed, there was a picture of my kids at the Lilac Festival hanging on the walls of the George Eastman House!

What fun