Day 7: Preschool Christmas Party

Yes, as you can see the plan was also to attend the Rogers Santa Claus Parade downtown. However, the night before, we realized that last year's parade didn't wrap up until almost 4 pm, and we needed to be back in Coquitlam for Amanda's preschool party by 4:30 pm. So reluctantly we decided to skip the parade this year. Hopefully we can make it next year, as we have enjoyed it in the past! It felt weird not to go this year.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon was the Christmas party for Amanda's preschool. In school they have been talking a lot about construction, so the teachers came up with the idea of having them "construct" gingerbread houses as a Christmas project. Although it would have been easy to just provide the kids with templates, each group was given the option to design the type of house they wanted to build, as well as any special design elements. The students visited a local high school and worked with Foods students to roll, cut, and bake the gingerbread pieces. Then at the party, they constructed and built the houses. Finally, on Monday morning they visited a local seniors centre to present the houses and enjoy a carol sing-along. I thought the whole thing was brilliant - the emphasis was not only on building the houses, but building relationships in the community.

Of course, our team of kids decided that an ordinary house was not for them - they wanted a chalet. (In the car on the way home from school the day they planned their houses, Amanda announced they'd decided on an "A-frame house". That kid knows more about houses than I do!). They also specified that it was to have an awning and paving stones. Hmm...OK. So we parents planned accordingly and waited to see what the kids would do with the decorations we provided.

The built house:


The crazily-decorated roof:


The completed house...check out the Pop-Tart and lollipop awning:


Sam was not terribly impressed:


Amanda posing:


We were totally impressed with the kids' decorating job (OK, the dads were mostly responsible for that awning). But the chalet-style house posed some huge challenges - the roof wasn't well-supported by the house walls, so it was a constant battle between armed-with-icing parents and the determined-to-slide-off roof. We thought we had won the battle, but the house had the last laugh, as it collapsed in the car on the way home. :( The kids were a bit sad, but not much so...after all, the fun was in the planning and building!