Gingerbread Houses 2025
I think this might be the latest that I have documented our gingerbread house competition. I usually, at least, write about them in the same year they are made. Oh Well, … better late than never! This year we were missing CuteNiece2 and CuteNephew. Otherwise, we had a full house and lots of fun (not to mention candy ;-) .) We made houses and a big, fun mess on December 23rd this year. (Also, because I waited several days (hey – we were busy) to take pictures, the houses are looking a little “faded”.) So, here, in no particular order, are the teams and houses:
Team One: TheFirstChild and SweetiePie. We stole their girls for other teams and left them to their own devices. Due to a new-found love of golf, their theme was … golf. SweetiePie excelled at the decorative frosting and for the first time in several years, TheFirstChild actually built things for the house — he’s usually a “supervisor”. He built the little golfer at the tee, the green (which looks more black here LOL), and the little tiny golf balls. Great Job Golfers!
Team Two: TheSecondChild and CuteNewFriendfromFlorida. We had a new guest with us this year which was really fun. I think this was her first time making gingerbread houses and she did a great job. Their theme was Florida, where they both live. They decided to put the flags from their birth countries on the roof — America and Venezuela (or, as some prefer to call it, Jamaica LOL). They created a beach scene in front of their house with CuteNewFriend posing by the beach and TheSecondChild floating on a raft near an oil spill. Not sure where the oil spill came from, but I was very disappointed that they didn’t have an iguana anywhere. Really. Any self-respecting Florida house should have an iguana — or at the very least, an alligator! We all especially loved their palm trees — very clever use of the tip of an ice cream cone!
Team Three: TheManoftheHouse, Me, and FinallyAnotherGirl (now 7 years old). Somehow, we ended up with the same team we had last year — we thought we were being so careful to match the girls up with different teams this year. All three girls are playing competitive chess at school, so we decided to do a chess house. TheManoftheHouse did the structural work, FinallyAnotherGirl worked really hard on the chessboards on the roof, and I mixed a lot of icing. The King and Queen were Santa and Mrs. Claus, the bishops were elves, the knights were reindeer, the rooks were Santa’s sack of toys, and the pawns were little gumdrop presents. This was a fun house to build!
Team Four: CuteNiece1 and FinallyAGirl (now 9 years old). Both these girls love Christmas movies and the naughtier the better, so they chose Home Alone as their theme. Movie lines on the roof, black frosting for fire damage, bad guys escaping out the front door and window, and Keven hiding out in the bushes at the back of the house. Very clever and great work by the only all-girl team!
Team Five: MyDadLovesMeBestSister, CrazyBIL, and HurrayAThirdGirl (now 6 years old). At long last, we have a team who went with a traditional Christmas theme – The Nativity. HurrayAThirdGirl put fruit roll-ups on the roof, which, for some reason became known as the bacon house with lots of laughs. As the biased moderator, I confess, this was my favorite house. We always have the girls describe the house they worked on before we vote, and HurrayAThirdGirl was so cute describing their house. She’s just the happiest, most cheerful little girl anyway, and, as I told her father, you absolutely cannot be having a bad day if she’s around. I loved all the shredded wheat on the house and the ground — very authentic. HurrayAThirdGirl was very proud of the three wise men and all the animals too. Great Job Team 5!
As always, voting was really hard this year. Everyone was so creative and worked hard, so it’s difficult not to vote for all of them. But, vote we must, and the winners this year were TheSecondChild and CuteNewFriendfromFlorida — welcome to the party CuteNewFriendfromFlorida!
I can’t believe it’s already 4 days into January — the holiday season flew by. I do have a few projects that were completed at the end of the year — do you think I’ll make it back here to document them? We’ll See {Sigh.)
XOXO,
Anna
