CULLMAN — With building materials neatly laid out and the foundation in place, construction began on the annual Patterson family Christmas project – gingerbread houses.

Nine little pairs of hands carefully placed their roofing materials (gum drops and/or jelly beans) in place atop a mound of fluffy white Royal Icing.

The drill sergeant, er, grandmother of this crew of little engineers is Doris Patterson, whom many residents will be familiar with from her years of teaching home economics and FCCLA at Fairview.

The kids were unusually quiet and worked industriously to get each piece of candy in just the right spot. “Look, you need a wreath (Lifesaver) over your door,” she patiently pointed out to one of the younger children.

Patterson learned to make the colorful confections from a friend a long time ago. She frequently had her classes make them around the holidays before she retired. Among her students were her own three children, Jill, Jenny and David.

Both daughters can recall making the little houses around Christmastime when they were around eight and nine. Now here they are again, making houses under the careful eye of their mom, and helping to guide their own children as they continue the tradition.

The houses start out as graham crackers. Carefully separated into halves (each of the halves will form a square) with one cut diagonally to form both gable ends, the pieces are then hot- glued to a lunchroom sized milk carton. For such a huge project as this one, Patterson uses a ‘cement’ of Royal Icing consisting of seven pounds of powdered sugar and 14 egg whites, to fill in the corners, cover the roof, make the doors and windows, and the pathways leading to the doors.

Each child carefully chooses decorations from the small bowls lined up on the table. Diligently they place M&Ms, chocolate chips, marshmallows, licorice, and lemon drops along the roof line and around each window. Occasionally a stray piece winds up in the mouth of the builder.

When the houses are finished, all the kids agree that decorating them was almost the best part, second only to eating their materials. Each house turned out differently as interpreted by its little builder. They were all works of art.

Patterson says the houses will keep for a long time on display. “You really can’t eat the whole thing because of the hot glue,” she cautioned. “And the icing sets up really hard, but they can still enjoy looking at them for several weeks.”

She advises working on a section at a time because if you put the icing on all at once, it will be too hard by the time you get ready to stick in the candy. “And work slowly, maybe do the roof first, then one side and then another,” she said.

“Also, if the icing gets too stiff you can remedy that by adding another egg white. If it’s too runny just add a little more confectioner’s sugar.”

Most of the grandchildren live close by, with the exception of Henry, Grace and Grant, David Patterson’s children, who live in Hoover.

Patterson not only cooks, scrapbooks, paints, she does several crafts, including making lovely themed stockings covered with felt Santa’s and snowmen and trimmed in glittering sequins.

Her mantle is covered with them from end to end. “There is one for each of my three children, their spouses, and all of the nine grandchildren,” she pointed out. “Each one reflects a hobby or a personality trait of its owner. One is a jolly Santa fisherman, another is an angel, all were done with the person whose name appears on the stocking in mind.”

“I’m not sure I would have started this if I’d known how many there would eventually be,” she laughed.

If someone else has another child she will have to build a new mantle.

The house is filled with mementos of her family, both present and past. There is obviously a lot of love here.

Laughter rang out intermittently as the children finished their project and moved into the playroom.

Patterson and her daughters have accomplished what all mothers and grandmothers do best-making another good memory to add to their collection.