Five Tips for Hosting A Gingerbread House Party

Some of the gingerbread houses from our family decorating party.

Last weekend our family had lots of fun with a gingerbread house party. It made me think back to all the different types of gingerbread houses I’ve done over the years — some for newspaper articles, others with family and friends.

I remember the all-day experience of mixing, rolling out and baking from-scratch dough, and attaching walls and roof with homemade Royal Icing. And, the easier graham cracker construction projects. (Hot glue guns seem to be the secret to holding crackers together more easily than icing.)

This time around, we had several young kids and guys who aren’t exactly pastry chefs, so we used pre-assembled gingerbread houses kits. It just seems that people enjoy the decorating process more than the construction process…at least, I do.  Walmart, Michaels and Costco all had assembled house kits.  The Costco version was a little more expensive, but it was bigger, the tubes of frosting were easier to use, and included two gingerbread men.

A traditional house with lots of trimmings, next to a Mario Bros. gingerbread castle.

Trevor and Amy brought their own Mario Bros. castle-house kit to assemble, and we talked Jess into trying his hand a simple camper cookie. To each his own!

Congrats to Jess for his cute camper cookie!

Some tips if you want to host a gingerbread house party:

1. Plan for enough time for everyone to complete their houses. If you’re trying to make and assemble your own gingerbread house, you’ll need several hours of rolling and baking time. And you’ll need a some drying time once you’ve glued your sides together with icing.  Otherwise everything will cave in under the weight of the roof, and/or decorations. (How do I know this? Experience is a great teacher.) You may want to schedule the baking and building one day, and then the decorating on a different day.

Creativity can take some time, so don’t try to rush your guests.

Since we used pre-assembled gingerbread houses, we only needed time to do the decorations. Although we planned to start at 1 p.m., we had some late-comers and didn’t down to serious business until about 2 p.m.  Most of the guys and young kids were ready to hang up their icing tubes by 3:30 p.m.  Me, I could have taken another hour to add more embellishments. If all the guests are Pinterest people, they could spend all night. If they’re ESPN people, probably not. But, when people started finishing up, the hosts (my daughter Amy and son-in-law Trevor) pulled out some games to keep the fun going.

A Wheat Thins roof with candy Christmas lights…I had so much fun I didn’t want to stop adding more decorations, but everyone else was finished!

2. Bring lots of supplies and decorations. In the past, some of the kids have shared a gingerbread house and ended up squabbling over their conflicting decorations. So I made sure that we had enough for each person to do their own house, if they wanted. In the end, we had some house kits left over (and they made great gifts for friends!). Although the kits include some candies, keep in mind that there’s some nibbling that goes on, so you don’t end up with as many of those Red Hots, Smarties, gumdrops or M & Ms as you thought.

Have lots of different candies to allow for nibbling, and to spark creativity such as Hershey bars for solar panels.

Also, you’ll want some creative ingredients, such as Frosted Mini-Wheats, Chex cereals, and Wheat Thins for roofing; pretzels for walls, lollipops for street lights, etc.  Since we’re into solar energy we used Hershey bars to install solar panels on some of our houses. My son, Eric, and granddaughter London also cut-up Wheat Thins to make an environment-friendly windmill.

Frosted Mini-Wheats and pretzels give a rustic snow-covered look.

3. Keep it organized. Amy and Trevor had covered the tables and countertops with disposable tablecloths. All the candies and supplies were stationed one one place on the counter. The only thing that tended to get “lost” was Amy’s extremely useful pair of scissors. I think we’ll bring two pairs next time! When it came time to clean-up, we loaded most of the leftover candies and icing tubes into one big bag, lifted up the tablecloths and threw them away. No dribbles of frosting and crumbs to clean up.

Solar panels,  pretzel windows and a yard full of trees. What more could anyone want?

4. Look for ideas beforehand. Yes, there are fabulously decorated gingerbread houses all over the Internet. And I took photos of houses at the Festival of Trees. Not that any of us had professional expertise to pull off those creations, but little ideas came to mind. I like the  stepping-stones of Smarties outlining the gingerbread house that Stephanie and Jackie did together.

A snowy roof and cute surrounding yard, with lots of fun embellishments here.

5. Praise or prizes? Truthfully, every gingerbread house is going to be cute, as any frosting dribbles or less-than-perfect decorations only adds charm.  We mentioned that Papa Kim would be judging the houses, and give out “$100 grand” to the winner ($100 Grand bars…). Six-year-old Jackie got a little concerned that the judging “wouldn’t be fair.”  Well, Grandma made sure to give Papa a long list of categories that could be awarded, so that EVERYONE got a prize. Such as:

  • Most creative
  • Most colorful
  • Most realistic
  • Most beautiful
  • Most environmental minded
  • Most like Hansel & Gretel’s house
  • Most modern
  • Best use of frosting
  • Most welcoming
  • Best use of candies
  • Best yard
  • Most old-fashioned
  • Most funny
  • Best roof

Prizes can be optional; you may want to just let everyone collect the compliments from each other, since every house will be different and fun.

Written by