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Assistant Managing Editor LONGMEADOW For the last 11 years the Kelley family has been keeping a sweet tradition alive: gingerbread houses. It started with John and Denise's eldest daughter Ashling. When the now 20-year-old was a second grade student in Peg Auth's class at Center School, she read Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House in the Big Woods." Then Denise read an article about how to build gingerbread houses in a magazine. What started out as a family activity has now turned into a community effort. Since then the Kelley crew has been returning to Auth's class every year to build gingerbread houses with the students. The family has expanded since 1996 and Patrick, Katherine and Peter have joined in. While creating gingerbread houses with students can be a fun and creative way to spend the day, it is also quite labor intensive. John told The Reminder he created the more than 3,000 logs with a sausage stuffer. They have graham crackers to serve as tables for the houses, icing working as glue, trees made out of upside ice cream cones and candies and gum drop decorations. Depending on the student, the decorations can be as simple or elaborate as his or her mind will allow. Even parents come to volunteer for the project. "I like when we're all done and we ask them about their house," Denise said with a smile. "It's a lot of fun." Katherine, who is currently a student in Auth's class, said that one her favorite things to do it is eat some of the decorations. Peter, a fourth grader at Center School, wrote about his family's tradition for a writing assignment in his classroom. Patrick, the second oldest in the clan, acts sort of as the master engineer, going around and inspecting all the houses, adding icing into crevices and making sure that everything is together and intact. Denise grinned as students returned from lunch and got back to work on their houses. "It gets their imaginations going," she added. For more photos of the fun day, visit www.thereminder.com and click on "Photo Gallery." | ||||||
