Candy Gingerbread House and Train For Christmas

Christmas time is my favorite time of the year to do crafts, especially crafts made out of candy.

Crafting gingerbread houses and little villages out of gingerbread and candy was something that I did with my mother every Christmas. This special time with my mother was so special to me, I just had to do the same with my kids.

Since my husband and I were blessed with all boys, we needed to come up with a craft idea that would include them, and that they enjoyed doing. It was my husband's idea to do a train station instead of the usual gingerbread house. It was so much fun. It did my heart so much good, when one of my sons invited me over last year to help him and his boys craft their Santa's Train Station.

To craft your own Santa's Train Station, you will need these items.

1. Platform - I have a large sheet of thin plywood that I keep just for this purpose. You can use cookie sheets, or whatever works best for you.

2. Graham crackers

3. Ritz crackers

4. Round peppermints - red & white and green & white

5. Gum drops

6. Small candy canes

7. M & M's

8. Large marshmallows

9. Almond slices

10. Pretzel twigs

11. Gingerbread - cut in size and shape you want for four walls and two triangles for roof peaks.

12. Icing - white - If you want different colors add a little food coloring. You can use already made icing if you prefer, but I make some 'Fluffy White Icing.' It is real light, and it makes enough so that I can cover the platform to look like ground covered snow.

Organize

Decide who builds what

Arrange all you stuff in bowls to make it convenient. That way everyone can sit around the table building their own part of the train or station. Arrange things on the table so that you don't get in each other's way.

Candy Christmas Craft Train Station

On your platform that you have put icing on for snow, put the four walls up. You can hold them together with toothpicks until the icing sets. Pipe icing through a tube where you want your windows and door. Decorate around these with M&M's. Let this set for a little while. Meanwhile, use gumdrops around house in bunches. You can clip the tops to make them look like flowers. I take a frozen foods knife and cut the curve off the candy canes and use the straight part for door posts.

Put a couple of marshmallow together, then put icing around for one or two snowmen. Break off little pieces of pretzel for eyes and mouth.

After the icing has set keeping the walls up, get the two pieces of gingerbread ready for your roof. Put plenty of icing around top edges of wall to hold the roof in place. Before you put the roof on, spread icing on the roof pieces and then put on. Arrange almond slices on roof to look like shingles. I put icing along top edge so that a gap cannot be seen, then I cover this with peppermint swirls. I use M&M's to make a pathway from the door.

Candy Christmas Craft Train

The train engine will take three graham crackers, and six ritz crackers. Stand two graham crackers up for the walls of the engine. Put icing along the top of the walls, and set the other graham cracker on top of this for the top of the engine. Stack four ritz crackers together, with just a little bit of icing between each so that they adhere together. Turn this stack on it's side, and place next to the graham cracker walls. This is the nose of your engine. Take the other two ritz crackers, put a little icing on them, and then adhere them to the graham cracker walls. These are the engines wheels. Use icing to pipe on spokes. If you like, you can put a peppermint in the middle of the nose of the engine, and break a piece of graham cracker off and adhere to the front of the nose for a cow-catcher.

For the trains cars, break graham crackers in half, and make boxes out of four pieces. Use peppermint candies for the wheels. These boxes can be decorated any way that you like, and can be used to hold candies, pretzels, or any holiday treat.

It is really quite easy to put these things together, and the really fun part is, you can decorate any way you feel like. It's a candy Christmas craft that the whole family can enjoy, year after year.