Host Your Own Gingerbread House Party

Gingerbread house

We have so many fun holiday traditions, but I am always looking for new ways to spend time together. One of our newer holiday traditions is having a gingerbread house party.

We have built them by ourselves and also with our extended family. And we hope to host parties with our friends and family again this year.

Here are some tips for hosting your own gingerbread house party!

Gingerbread House Party How-To

Party Snacks

You will want to have fun treats for all the decorators. A hot cocoa bar is a great option and you can make it in a crockpot to keep it warm. And don’t forget marshmallows, whipped cream, and peppermint stir sticks. These can also be used as decorations for the gingerbread houses!

Since kids will snack on the decorations while building, provide a few non-sweet options, like a meat and cheese tray or a bowl of nuts. And a charcuterie board is a nice option for the adults.

Assembling the House

The houses can be built in a few different ways, including using store bought kits. If it’s just a few people, you can share one large house.

We like the mini gingerbread house kits. They usually have five to six houses and are about the same price as one large house.Gingerbread house

Structural Support

You can also build your houses out of graham crackers. And can use either small milk cartons or single serving cereal boxes to attach the graham crackers to for support. You can use frosting to fuse it all together or if you really want to make it easy, a hot glue gun.

Since we always buy a kit, we use the included icing.

But if you don’t buy a kit, you will want to make royal icing to make sure your houses stay together. If this sounds like too much work, just get out the hot glue gun. Make sure it is set on low and glue that house together. Also, make sure you tell your kids not to eat any of the house later!

If you have shoeboxes, use the lids to build houses on. Otherwise, we cut out a small cardboard square and add parchment paper for each house.

I like to put the cardboard squares with the houses on cookie sheets when decorating, especially with smaller kids. It helps contain the mess, especially any sprinkles.

Kids may need help assembling the house. And it’s best to let the icing harden before decorating.

Pro Tip: I like to frame the houses ahead of time, especially with younger kids. An assembled and hardened house allows them to push harder when decorating. If you don’t follow this step, houses may fall apart during decorating.

To avoid tears over collapses, we like to have a prize for the most damaged house at the end.

DecoratingGingerbread house

When you invite your family and friends, you can ask them to each bring a different ingredient to use for decorating. This is a great way to get a variety of items.

Some common ingredients you can use are cereal, pretzels, candy canes, candy (Dots, Red Hots, gummies), marshmallows, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.

The movie theater candy boxes are a fantastic way to get lots of variety. And I also find holiday cookie sprinkles make fun décor.

Encourage the kids to make a yard for their house, making a walking path, or add a fence or bonfire (pretzel sticks and red candies) as a fun addition. You can also provide frosting and ice cream cones to use for Christmas trees.

And muffin trays work well for holding lots of decoration options. Plus, little kids will not tip them over easily.

Once you are done building and decorating, don’t forget to award small prizes (like candy canes) for categories such as strongest house, most unique house, house Santa is most likely to visit, and the house the big, bad wolf blew over — someone is bound to knock a house over during the decorating.

When your guests are ready to go, provide cake boxes for everyone to carry their gingerbread house in. We save shipping boxes from our holiday shopping just for this purpose.

We have had a lot of fun hosting a gingerbread house party with our family and hope you have a great time building yours, too!

And for all things Holiday, check out the Fargo Mom Ultimate Guide to Holiday & Christmas Events in Fargo!
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Laura Hagan
Laura was raised in a small town in Minnesota and moved to Grand Forks to attend UND. She received a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, then moved to Fargo for her job as a process engineer. She loves the Fargo life! She is currently pursuing her Master of Business Administration at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Laura lives with her husband, Alex, and her son, Miles. She loves traveling with her family when she is not busy with her graduate studies, two dogs, and a cat. Laura loves reading, playing board games with her son, going on vacation, and spending time at the lake with her family.

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