Gingerbread Houses and Standing Christmas Trees

I am a Hallmark and other Christmas movie addict from Thanksgiving thru Christmas.  Often these movies show families happily making gingerbread houses for the holiday.  This year one of the newer movies showed a family making a house for a local contest, besides using a chocolate bar cut to be a door on their house, they made cute little gingerbread trees standing in their snow covered (powdered sugar) yard.  This got me looking on-line for how to make the trees.

I did not find a sample of the method used in the movie - which was:
1. Use a tree shaped cookie cutter and make 2 cookies per desired number of trees.
2. Leave 1 tree shape full and cut the 2nd shape in half from tip to bottom, but do not separate the halves. 
3. Place cut-outs on parchment covered cookie sheet so they are easier to remove.
4. Bake all the tree shapes according to gingerbread recipe,
5. Let cool.  Cut the halved trees along the marked line.
6. Using frosting, glue a half to one side of a whole tree, prop with something until it sticks good.
7. Repeat step 6 with other half on other side of whole tree.
8. Stand tree up and prop sides, allow 30 minutes to set.
9. Decorate as desired.
If the above instructions are confusing, look at the centerpiece tips below, so it will become more clear on how to do this,

Below are some of the easiest methods I found for making gingerbread trees, However they make one large tree to use as an edible  3-D centerpiece for your holiday table.

• Simple D-I-Y Gingerbread Tree with recipe
• Frosted 3-D Gingerbread Tree with video

If you want to try your hand at making an entire Gingerbread House, check out the photos and 23-step instructions at How to Make a Gingerbread House.   If you plan to eat the house, then skip the "preserving" tips at bottom of this post.

If you do not want to go to this much trouble, but still want a fun activity to do with the kids, check out photos and instructions on How to Make Graham Cracker Houses.  The top of the post is construction, then in the middle of this post is a dip recipe to eat while creating houses, skip the dip to go to decorating ideas..