I've found that perfection is in the eye of the gingerbread artist, consistent with personal goals and vision, when it comes to making a gingerbread house from scratch. When you are working with kids, to assemble and decorate gingerbread houses, you'll find that a greater number of hands leads to a time intensive project, and attention to detail varies.
Every year, we learn new ways to get better results, but every year, I become less stressed about the appearance of the final products. First, as the kids get older, their personal touches become more personalized and unique, and they become capable of perfecting their creations according to their own vision. Small children will put a few candies here and there, and one shouldn't expect a gingerbread house worthy of feature by the Martha Stewart's of the world. Older children are interesting to watch, though, as you see the variation in modalities displayed in their final results. My analytical, visual learning children often have very defined decoration patterns, while my more artistic, auditory, and creative children find unique ways to work a theme into their gingerbread art.
In preparing, I've found that organization is important for sanity's sake. I've also found some different baking and cutting techniques that provide a more standard outcome in the gingerbread panels. I don't worry so much about the assembly, in terms of perfectly placed icing, because this often gets covered in the decorating process.
You'll find my cutting techniques here, and a guide to my gingerbread house how to's here.
