Well, as if going to the White House Christmas Ball isn’t wonderful enough, when you go you get to see some *amazing* gingerbread creations that the pastry chefs have put together!
Mary Sessions, whose husband Jeff is one of our Senators, sent me some pics from this year’s Ball (they are just the nicest family – I love their daughter Mary Abigail!). Each year, they attend. Here are some pics she took from previous years:
2005 (see at the bottom right of this pic? Those are the Bush family dogs!):
2006 (Santa’s sleigh on the roof!):
This year the pastry chefs really outdid themselves, and all the gingerbread is covered in white chocolate. Wow!:
I didn’t realize this, but the menus of different functions at the White House are on the WH website – this is what was served at Thanksgiving. The First Lady even has her favorite recipes there too.
Mary asked Kelly Beville Ogburn to make our our state ornament this year for one of the WH Christmas trees. The other ornaments that were picked out by our state’s Representatives have links to them at the bottom of that page too. The one from the 3rd district is *so* pretty!
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When I looked just now at gingerbread houses on Flickr, there are pics of all kinds of wonderful (and funny) gingerbread creations – gingerbread holiday setting, gingerbread shops, Wizard of Oz scene, Spongebob’s house, even a kitty box (!?what?!) and three different redneck gingerbread scenes (1, 2, 3) even!! My friend Sandy is promising to post her pics of gingerbread from the Grove Park Inn in Asheville soon. Can’t wait to see those!! She’s got pics here of when she’s been to the National Gingerbread House Competition up there before.
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Oh, and you know I can’t even mention about gingerbread without thinking of Bette Mott’s house in McComb. A set of pics from my visits to her house is here.
She loves her gingerbread!