Gingerbread Christmas Tree

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Gingerbread Christmas tree - a great baking and cooking project to do with the kids for the holidays. Preschoolers and food

I realize that it is not even Thanksgiving yet.  It’s not that I have anything against Thanksgiving because I have a lot to be thankful for, but I am overjoyed for this upcoming Christmas season. I understand that most do not like how early the holidays seem to come more & more each year, but for me I can’t wait, especially after having our daughter. Christmas is magical. The Christmas carols, the twinkling lights & the smells are all divine.

I am one of those people that have gotten into the spirit a little bit early, but I don’t care. My daughter doesn’t know any different. To her it is Christmas time already. This weekend we put on some Christmas carols & filled our house with the delicious smell of gingerbread. My daughter loves baking with mommy & she loves eating it too. One of the great things about gingerbread is it has the same consistency as Play-Doh. This of course made my Play-Doh obsessed daughter happy.

Gingerbread Christmas Trees

Bake your gingerbread. Here is the recipe that we used. Gingerbread Recipe

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You will need star cookie cutters. Using different sized cookie cutters, cut out about 10 cookies. If you do not have 10 different cutters, you can improvise.
I had 5 cutters in various sizes. I cut two of each size, cutting one a little thicker than the other. I worked the thicker star out carefully using my fingers to make it a little bit larger than the first star.

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On the smallest star I added a small point for the top of the tree.

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Bake your cookies according to the recipe.

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Make your icing while the cookies bake.

Icing:

1 cup of confectioners sugar

2 Tbsp of milk

1/2 Tsp vanilla

Stir your ingredients together until smooth.

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Stack the cookies from biggest to smallest. Use the icing to hold the pieces together. Stagger the star points so that they lined up every other cookie.

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Drizzle icing over the top of the tree & add M&M minis or another candy of your choice.

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Gingerbread Christmas tree - a great baking and cooking project to do with the kids for the holidays. Preschoolers and food

As I said already the gingerbread dough has a similar consistency to Play-Doh. I let my daughter use the leftover dough to craft her own cookies.

She crafted these as birthday cakes for me & her. The birthday cakes looked a bit like a pile of something else that I don’t want to say, but otherwise they still tasted delicious. Mai iced up her cookies and they passed her taste test. The only problem was trying to wrestle away all of her cookie creations from her so that she didn’t eat them all.

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We also made these cute little trees imparting the same concept of stacking the stars as with the cookie tree.

Foam Christmas tree craft for kids

We cut out 10 different sized stars using foam sheets & cut out a hole in the middle of each big enough to fit around a toilet paper roll. Cut only a small hole in your top star & loop a pipe cleaner through it to for the peak of the tree. Attach 2 small foam stars to either end of the pipe cleaner. Paint a toilet paper roll & a Dixie cup (The Dixie cup will be used for your base. Let dry. Glue the toilet paper roll into the cup. Stack the stars from biggest to smallest over the toilet paper tube & glue the top star over the top of the toilet paper roll. Let dry & let your child decorate the tree with craft pom poms, yarn, cotton snow etc.

 

 

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12 comments

  1. Glad I’m not the only super festive parent here on WordPress!
    (I totally just remembered I bought some star shaped cookie cutters the other day and have an overwhelming urge to make some cookies now!)

          1. Haha! Its soo funny wen ou just get right into the moment and end up with a zillion things littering the house!
            I love days like that 🙂

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