We have our annual tradition over the holidays of making graham cracker houses for Christmas, and then when New Years comes we stage a large battle scene with fire and soldiers to destroy them. This year we had a Medieval theme for which I built a castle that ended up pretty cool, and others gave it a more castle-type theme. Brittany & Matt were down for the holidays, and even my son-in-law made a miniature Minas Tirith from LOTR. The fire that rains from the sky (napalm in our army scenarios) we determined was dragon fire and flamed ordinance from catapults. In reality we use a lengthy piece of plastic to drip the flame down from a ladder with a zipping sound - our whiffle bat worked quite well and we also mixed in a plastic sand shovel. An old set of Weapons and Warriors that we were going to throw out served well for our red & blue medieval soldiers, and the catapults and ballista added a nice touch along with some trees. We didn't use any fireworks this year, but Hannah, Jonathan, Caleb and Sarah all got to drip the fire to cool effect. The fire raged pretty quick and my castle was reduced to complete rubble and few soldiers survived. But with the glow of the flames I captured all the carnage with my camera.
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