Gingerbread Houses At Gaylord Texan

Welcome to the Gingerbread Village at The Gaylord Texan. For those of you who are just joining us please read the previous post so you can see more of this magnificent property & see the amazing event called ICE that we went to see. But, this post is about the other fun exhibits we saw while there. This area was in a separate wing of the hotel (notice the little patio of one of the rooms in the photo below) & once you rounded the corner you could SMELL the SWEET smell of all the REAL gingerbread & candies used to make this display. The gingerbread men above were probably about 8 feet tall or more! The blue & yellow were M&M candies. The white areas are marshmallows. The pink & aqua were jelly beans. HUNDREDS OF THEM!

In the photo above you can see the size of the gingerbread house(& again some of the rooms overlooking this huge courtyard). The entire house was made of gingerbread & decorated in candy. THE SMELL WAS DIVINE!!!!!!!!!!!!

A close up of the wall of the house 3 of the cookies used to decorate it. The bright colored items on the far left a large lollipops with frosting holding them in place. Below, is the side wall you see as you approach the house just past the sign & gingerbread people you have seen above. Again, the white being marshmallows (click on the photos to enlarge). The dark yellow butterscotch hard candies. M&M’s as well as jelly beans by the thousands.

How did these rascals sneak into this photo op on the front porch? This fellow below is beckoning you to come see his Winter Wonderland train display. How would you like to be the one lining up the blue M&M’s on this dude? And could you ever face another marshmallow?

All Aboard For FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come back for a last look at the Gaylord’s other train displays that I will share with you soon. In the meantime… BE SAFE THIS NEW YEARS WEEKEND! I look forward to 2011 & all my amazing friends in Blogland. What a blessing you are to me. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HUGS! Charlene

ICE at the Gaylord Texan

That’s what I needed today!!!!

Today I took my GRANDS, daughter-in-law, & her mother to Grapevine Texas to The Gaylord Texan Hotel where they once again were hosting the amazing display called ICE.

The hotel is HUGE! With rooms soaring into the glass topped ceiling. ICE takes place every year between Thanksgiving & New Years. Millions of pounds of ice is made. And 41 ice carving artists are brought in from China to carve & create a frozen wonderland. I had taken the oldest GRAND twice before. Once before his brother was born & once 2 years ago (but, his brother & mother missed the family event because the little one was sick). Go HERE to see the display from that year. That years theme was candy & all sorts of sweets. This year the theme was…

A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS!!!

You have to have gloves, hats, & the hotel even provided bright BLUE parka’s because of the COLD temperatures. They keep this huge tented area a COLD 9 degrees with fans running to move the air so the ice won’t melt. Let’s look at some more of this amazing ART! The size of these figures were well above my 6 foot tall self! Imagine millions of pounds of ice… Chipping, carving, melting, molding this into Charlie & his friends.

Brick walls constructed. This one was probably 4 feet tall. A HUGE RED fence with wreathes for photo ops. The size of these are so much bigger than you would think. The GRAND on the right is 10 years old so you can see the scale of this. This is 5 ICE SLIDES with ICE block walls with Charlie Brown & his megaphone smiles over the fun & Charlie Brown Christmas music is playing over loud speakers. Do you LOVE the LED lights imbedded into the ice?

Linus & his Blankie.

This scene of Charlie Brown & his piano was huge & with that scraggly Christmas tree on the piano so silly!

Snoopy’s house was actually a house that you could crawl through. Adults included. AMAZING!

I LOVE the look of the lights with an actual light inside.

Again I ADORE the lights on the tree & the POPCORN! Can you imagine carving this popcorn chain?

In the photo above with Snoopy you see the blue colored wall with the lights? It’s a cave like tunnel running into the very last part of the display.

Leading down to large candelabra's with LED lights inside.

To come upon the angel looking towards...

A darkened room of CLEAR ICE carved into a nativity.

As a voice starts reading the Christmas story of

Mary & Joseph with their child in the manger, the lights start spotlighting each figure.

Sheppard's & Wisemen.

Breathtaking Beauty in the Greatest Story Ever Told.

I hope you have enjoyed this post & will come back soon for the continuation of the trip to The Gaylord. I will share an amazing GINGERBREAD HOUSE made from a ton of candy & marshmallow's. And a train display every sized kid (big & small) could ever want. In fact… The GRANDS have a list of “stuff” for Bop Bop to build.

HUGS! Charlene

Christmas Wipe Out!

This is kind of how I felt!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think Elle Elf shows us just what it feels like when Christmas WIPES YOU OUT!

I hope that all of you had a wonderful time with all your loved ones this past weekend. We had a wonderful Christmas. It began with Thursday night when we went to look at Christmas lights with neighbors down the street. The lines were TOOOOOOOOOOOO LONG to get into see Prairie Lights like we hoped but, we went to dinner & had a wonderful visit. Friday was Christmas Eve & sweet Sarah (who was the physician's assistant that diagnosed Hubby’s heart condition this year) & her sweetie came for dinner & drinks. We kept it casual with Frito Pie & Queso (cheee)dip. It was wonderful to start the celebration of Christmas with the person I credit for possibly saving Hubby’s life. We talked & laughed while drinking eggnog & wine well into the night. In fact at 11:45 as they were leaving I could almost swear I heard Santa’s sleigh bells ringing.

The stockings were hung (My mother in law made the one on the left for our oldest son about 37 years ago. And the one on the right I did the counted cross stitch for our youngest son about 30years ago).

Even the bear in my childhood rocker wore his Christmas sweater & Santa hat (with the hand made china hutch my Grandfather made for me for my second Christmas).

And Christmas Day dawned a beautiful cold day & that little boy that I stitched that stocking for alllllllllllllllllll those many years ago brought his two little bundles of joy to see Nonna & Bop Bop. There were “comote (OK he’s 5 & it’s soooooooooo cute when he says words wrong) control helicopters”.

And remote controlled mustangs! And a Pillow Pet!

All in all a GRAND day indeed. As we ate, opened gifts, enjoyed the fellowship of the day & was so thankful for all that we have had this whole year through… I had to smile feeling so blessed.

As I was washing dishes at about 11:45 & enjoying the Christmas music playing & the lights on the tree… the whole middle section of lights on the tree went dark. WHAT!!!!!!!! Well it seems the tree was as tired as Elf & I.

She had been crawled up in her bed but, I think she got hot. HOW can this be comfortable? So, I scooped her up & put her in her kennel for the night as I contemplated my new dilemma… HOW do I invite my girlfriends over for an after Christmas lunch with no tree lights???? I guess the tree comes down early & we have lunch sans tree. And the next dilemma… do I toss out the tree & get a new one like I’ve been wanting (FLOCKED) or take all the old lights off this one & restring the whole thing???? Oh it makes me tired just to think about it. I think I NEED another sugar cookie.
HUGS! Charlene