Wednesday 5 December 2012

Big and Little – Santa's Village

Santa's village made from cookies, chocolate and sweets

Well all good things must come to an end... this is the last post in our Big and Little Pretend Play series. But not to worry, Jill and I have some exciting, new ideas we are working on – stay tuned in 2013.

NOW get your toothbrush ready and have a look at our edible little Santa's village. Pop over to A Mom with a Lesson Plan to see her Big Pretend Play Santa's village... it is so gorgeous.

Santa's little village

I have seen lots of beautiful gingerbread houses on Pinterest but making my own gingerbread is way beyond my kitchen skills. I also have no idea where you can buy gingerbread house kits in Australia, in fact maybe you can't. So we did the next best thing, we decorated cardboard! I saw this idea in Jane Bull's book The Christmas Book. The kids and I went shopping to buy all the ingredients.

For the cottages:

  • 2 small cardboard milk containers (which I emptied and cleaned)
  • 1 packet of chocolate finger biscuits (cookies), I used Cadbury
  • Chocolate freckles
  • Jelly beans
  • Plain Sao crackers

For Santa's sleigh:

  • 1 packet of plain sweet biscuits (cookies), I used Arnotts milk coffee
  • 1 packet of chocolate finger biscuits (cookies), I used Cadbury
  • 1 packet of round chocolate wheaten biscuits (cookies), these are similar to chocolate covered digestive biscuits
  • Chocolate marshmallow logs
  • Candy canes
  • Foil covered chocolates to fill the sleigh
I made a big batch of icing to act as the glue. I mixed icing sugar (powdered sugar) and water to a nice thick consistency (for a strong gingerbread glue have a look at this recipe). Each kid had their own Santa's cottage decorating station on a large baking tray.

Making Santa's village
Getting started on their cottages
Making Santa's cottage
Trying to get those chocolate biscuits to stick

Cakey was determined to cover her cottage with chocolate biscuits, the biscuits worked much better placed horizontally. Boo was not interested in the milk container but she enjoyed decorating the Sao crackers with icing and lollies. Cakey and I happily decorated Boo's cottage for her. Once the cottages were finished we rushed them to the fridge so that the icing would set.

Santa's village

I made Santa's sleigh. It was easier than the cottages because we didn't have to deal with gravity. Starting with a piece of cardboard, I glued down four biscuits (cookies) with icing. I then layered chocolate finger biscuits on top to make the floor of the sleigh. I placed two marshmallow logs at one end to make a comfy seat for Santa. A round chocolate wheaten biscuit was stuck on either side of the marshmallow logs to complete the seat. Two candy cane runners were glued (with icing) directly onto the cardboard along the side of the biscuit layers. And finally, another marshmallow log was stuck to the front of the sleigh to hold all the goodies in. The sleigh followed the cottages into the fridge.

Santa's sleigh
Sleigh base
Santa's edible sleigh

The next day, shortly before friends were due to arrive, we set up our little Santa's village as a table display. The kids sprinkled icing sugar over it to make it white and snowy. We included some little Santa sacks that we had filled with sweets for the visiting kids. The girls loved showing their friends Santa's village and their friends loved taste-testing the village.

Little Santa sacks
Red Santa sacks

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and InstagramCheers Ali

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8 comments:

  1. Oh Ali! That's just so cute and festive. You are such a big inspiration. Waiting to see what u guys come up next. Hugs!

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  2. It's so fab to be breading your blog after so long. This santas village is too cute!

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  3. I love that you sprinkled snow on the display! What a fun and yummy project!

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  4. OMG! INCREDIBLE THINKING!! You did really making sense. My little baby girl like different things to do and I think this will be enjoyable for me also when I'll see she is making this.

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  5. These just look gorgeous and so much fun to create Ali!!! They really exude Christmas spirit...thanks for sharing!

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  6. Wow creative ideas for Christmas, and everything looks deliciously beautiful, simply irresistible goodies.

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  7. What a cute Santa Village. I featured it this week on Housing A Forest's weekly kids co-op. Thanks for linking up! I would love for you to stop by and check it out.

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