Christmas Decorations: How to Make a Gingerbread Trailer
[dc]T[/dc]is the season where Christmas stuff gets shoved down my throat is all around us, so I thought I would throw my hat into the arts and crafts ring, and present:
How to Make Gingerbread Trailer Christmas Decorations
Create a darling centerpiece for your next NASCAR viewing, meth intervention, or appearance on COPS.
Because, if you are going to make Christmas decorations, make something that will really get your parole officer neighbors talking. Before I get started, let’s get one thing straight: I used graham crackers, because I can’t afford real gingerbread. Not in this economy.
1. The Icing
First things first: buy a six-pack of beer, you need to whip up some icing to hold everything together. My better half made my icing for me (playing dumb has its advantages), so here is a recipe I found. Sadly, unlike my other Christmas decorations, I can’t use duct tape.
2. Gather Up Your Graham Crackers
This is what you will use to build your trailer, so you’ll need a few unbroken cracker sections. But, if you break some, ‘by accident’, you get a snack. Kinda like the time I worked at a video store, and I took home all the ‘broken’ movies–never mind they were only VHS copies of Transylvania 6-5000.
If you build it, they will come and eat it.
3. Start Building Your Trailer
Use the Royal Icing as mortar, and build a box, which will be the foundation for your darling Christmas centerpiece. You can skip the mortar if you are going for some kind of Cyclopean gingerbread trailer, and if you do, send pictures. I don’t see enough Cyclopean or H. P. Lovecraft inspired Christmas decorations…I wonder why?
Pretend you are making a coffin for a rodent.
4. Add the Roof
Your trailer should be box-shaped at this point, or round if you bought those fancy organic round graham crackers. You want a flat roof. Why? Because it is easier to sit on and spy on your neighbors. I mean to decorate. Yes, that’s it.
Boxing Day, indeed.
5. Time For Shingles (The Roof Stuff, Not the Virus)
Decorate your roof. Like a Three Stooges scheme, the more haphazard, the better.
These candy corns date back to the Clinton Administration.
7. Add a Trailer Hitch
Yes, a gingerbread trailer ain’t a trailer without something to hook up to–who cares if it never moved and never will. It is the thought that counts, like the time I gave Mom an expired Chia Pet for Christmas.
Wait, that is suggestive.
8. Add Wheels and Propane Tank
You need to have wheels, use Lifesavers or something similar. I also added a propane tank, which were just two gumdrops stuck together. That piece of licorice is supposed to be tubing. Yeah, because that makes sense. I’m like the MacGyver of gingerbread trailers.
“Tanks?” “You’re welcome.”
9. Add Your Gingerbread Family and Final Touches
I added a pair of blue Jolly Ranchers for windows and a Laffy Taffy for a door. Lucky for me, there were candy characters around, which allowed me to build a ‘gingerbread’ family. I had a gingerbread person (whom was not made of gingerbread) and a penguin made of chocolate. There was a container of gingerbread men shaped sprinkles, so I used those for the ‘kids.’
See the red ‘kid’ near the top step? That’s the red-headed step child. Har har.
Each kid is named after Dick Trickle.
10. Give Your Finished Christmas Decorations to Unsuspecting Friends or Relatives
I created a little baseball cap for the gingerbread ‘dad’–I just cut some licorice and used a red M&M. I also added a bottle cap, to look like a hub cap. And that’s it: a gingerbread trailer worthy of the cover of a hot rod magazine. Make one for the folks who gave you a $3 gift card for Chuck E. Cheese’s last Christmas.
You shouldn’t have. No, really, you shouldn’t have.
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A previous version of this article, with worse SEO and jokes, originally appeared on danieljhogan.com.
