We’ve been to glögg parties; we’ve decorated our friends’ trees. Finally, it was time to bring the holiday spirit to our own home.
During the last two years of living abroad, I’ve avoided buying a Christmas tree for myself and just waited until I went home for the holidays to bask in its yuletide glory. I’m spending my first Christmas in Sweden, though, and now we’re married! I was very convinced that we needed a tree of our own.
We built a funkis gingerbread house! Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
The thing is, despite the holidays, the two of us are trying to save money. What’s more, we’re moving to a new apartment on January 3, so any decorations we put up are going to have to be down and packed away (or tossed) by New Year’s. This was clearly not the year to invest in beautiful candles and delicate Christmas tree ornaments.
Solution: homemade gingerbread ornaments that we would decorate ourselves on the cheap and not feel bad throwing out before the move.
Plus, once you start baking gingerbread ornaments, you might just want to make a gingerbread house, too, and maybe some peppermint bark for low-cost gifts, and… and… I really love the holidays.
With visions of sugarplums dancing (somewhat metaphorically) in our heads, we stocked up on gingerbread dough, different colors of frosting, sprinkles, and enough sugar/flour/eggs/butter to supply a small army. Our friend Steve, also an expat, was game for holiday activities as well, so he came too, armed with yet another bottle of glögg and the all-important electric beater.
Operation Deck the Halls (or tree) was a go!
Steve brought the Force with him in the guise of a Star Wars apron, so I let him wear mine in exchange. The Force was strong within the Kitchen. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
As it turns out, Operation Deck the Halls was quite the time-consuming effort.
We started out with the first layer of chocolate for what would become peppermint bark, then we started drawing the design for our gingerbread house and baking the walls, then we had to make the frosting-glue, and then we were tied up for awhile trying to hold the walls in place while the frosting hardened. (At one point we tried to speed up the process with a hair dryer… as it turns out, not one of my finest ideas.)
By the time we finally got to making gingerbread ornaments and cookies, we were a little worn out.
Diligent ornament decorating. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
Fortunately, making the gingerbread ornaments turned out to be the easiest and most painless part of Operation Holiday Spirit. Roll out cookie dough! Utilize cookie cutter technology! Bake! Decorate!
A Master of Ornament Decorating. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
We punched little holes in our ornaments before we put them in the oven, but they pretty much closed up while baking, so we had to use a needle to poke them back through our poor Gingermen, women, and pigs again.
The final result?
Our first Christmas tree! Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
A totally beautiful tree. With the lights turned off and the candles softly illuminating the warm brown tones of our gingerbread ornaments, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.
Some of the ornaments in our tree! Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
Making our own ornaments allowed us to add fun touches like a personalized Michigan in honor of my home state, a Danish-speaking pig, and an evil gingerbread witch plus hearts, trees, and our initials—a K and an S—intertwined with the branches at the top of the tree.
More than that, it gave us an excuse to spend the whole day baking, listening to Christmas music, and spending time together. True holiday spirit and totally affordable.
