Every year, a few weeks before Christmas we have a Christmas Party. We invite all of our family and friends including school friends of our children, so that we can get to know their parents better. First we have a Chili dinner with lots of extra snack foods. Then after everyone has finished eating we begin our gingerbread houses.  A few weeks before the party I buy several foam boards, and using a yard stick and an exacto knife, I cut each one into six squares. I usually build the houses in advance for all of the children under 10. I ask every family to bring one bag of festive colored candy to be used on the houses. I make up a few batches of royal icing and put about half a cup into ziploc sandwich bags too be used as "glue" for our graham cracker houses. It takes about two or three minutes to set up so tell your guests to be patient. I put out all of the candies that everyone brought in styrofoam bowls in the center of the tables. Cut the tip off one corner of the ziploc bags and give one to each guest, and let them get started. We have holiday music playing and everyone has a great time trying to see whose house can be the gaudiest! Because we have so many guests, I usually let all of the children decorate their houses first. After they are finished we put out fresh candies for the adults. The adults have as much fun as the kids, and the kids get to watch holiday movies and play.  After each person finishes I take a photo of them and their house. I send these photos out to each guest in a Happy New Year card. Clean-up is a snap because I always use the dollar store disposable tablecloths so after the party is over we wrap up the cloths with everything inside it!!!