Our friends' 12-year-old daughter doesn't like sweets, so she has made her own sweets-free house for the past couple of years. (Sometimes I envy her -- I think I'd have the body of Heidi Klum if I didn't like sweets!) Anyhow, I always like to see what materials she decides to use, and how she uses them. This year her decorations primarily consisted of Triscuit crackers and various pretzels. Her design included a moat around the house, and a bridge crossing the moat. I thought that was a cool idea.
The rest of the family worked on the "candy" house, which took on a red and green theme this year. I would have never thought to use Honeycomb cereal for the roof. I thought it was cute. You really have to see some of the details of their house to fully appreciate it.
I mentioned on last year's gingerbread house post that our friend, Mike, is freakishly talented at making critters and characters out of Starburst and Tootsie Roll candies. This year's efforts surpassed past years' efforts. This was the Shrek and Donkey he created. Isn't the Shrek amazing? He didn't even have a picture to use as reference! OK, it wasn't perfect. I think he confused Donkey with one of the Wallace and Grommit characters (Wallace? Grommit? Which is which?). To be fair, his results may have been better if we had figured out a gray material for him to sculpt with.
Well, this year it became apparent that sculpting with candy is a hereditary trait, because their 10-year-old daughter demonstrated some serious talent in that area. Here's the Cindy Lou Who she created.
And this is the Grinch she created, complete with sleigh and his dog, Max. Amazing, huh?