Every year we take the biggest box and change it into a cardboard gingerbread house. It is so easy and the kids love it. I just ducktape a roof on top of it and cut some doors and windows. The kids do the rest.

Every morning I offer something else to decorate it with: paint, stickers, glue and wrapping paper, straws and popsicle sticks and glue guns… you name it. Sometimes kids come up with their own ideas what to add – like paper snowflakes, gems, glitter and playdough. Last year we even had a spaceship on top of the house!

That’s what I love about child-led open-ended projects. You never know where you end up. Even with something as simple (and many adults may think a straightforward project like this one) there is no one path to take. There is no gingerbread on our house – there are handprints, ladybugs and dragonflies, snowflakes, elves, lots of names and (of course) pizza – and we are only getting started!