First Annual Gingerbread House Contest

Okay, so I totally stole this great idea from my brother & his girlfriend, Ali & their friends. Idea thief or not, I have no regrets.

When I initially told Shad I thought we should have a Gingerbread House-making Contest, he said, "See if Jen will want to do it with you." That's his answer to anything he doesn't want to do. (Jen's apparently his back-up plan.)

So, fine. I asked Jen. And Jen seemed to think it was a great idea for couples to do too. So, we asked a few more friends & before you knew it, I had organized our First Annual Gingerbread House Contest (which, I might add, is not the easiest to do with a bunch of busy December schedules).

I sent out a date we would meet & a gameplan with rules for everyone to read before they purchased their ingredients. And it was off to Winco we go! "Mr.-See-If-Jen-Will-Do-It" was eating his words as he filled the cart with the majority of the materials for our house.

So yesterday, I threw together some chili, the Bradleys made a salad, the Petersons made dessert & the Helmboldts brought drinks. We were all starving & had lunch right away as we mentally geared up for the big competition.

Thank goodness Jen had a surplus of aprons, because that saved everyone's church clothes since we managed to have frosting from floor to ceiling. One of the rules required that there be no use of gingerbread house kits, so we were all "roughin' it".




Undoubtedly, the Petersons had the most elaborate, beautiful castle complete with a moat. Jason's an engineer & he built theirs so sturdy that someone in Kansas could display it on their front porch during tornado season & it'd survive.


The Helboldts were quite creative with their lighthouse. It was such a unique idea & it looked fabulous, as did their beach & little jellyfish.







The Bradleys made the "Clark Griswold House" from Christmas Vacation to include Cousin Eddy's RV draining the septic tank in Clark's front yard. Classic.

Bob was on call though & got called out just after we got started, so Jen had to finish the whole house by herself. Poor thing. The Griswold house is covered in lights & she had just finished up the RV. She had quite the job ahead of herself, but she did a fantastic job!

And we threw together a single-wide-Redneck-trailer-home. We had a washer & dryer in the front yard, some dead grass, the decorative white landscaping rock, a clothesline, a fishing pond, a TV antenna on the roof, Christmas lights around the windows, & an abundance of beer bottles laying around the yard.

The winner received $20 in gift cards (everyone had to bring a $5.00 gift card for the winners).

And this year's winner of the First Annual Gingerbread House Contest was:

(drum roll, please .... )

The Redneck Trailer!