This year one of favorite activities as a family was our gingerbread house decorating party. My mom went all out to bring joy to the kids, as she always does. She found the cutest houses at Target and each kiddo got to choose their favorite to decorate. We made it a party with cousins, pizza and lots of icing and decorations.
This is the red barn, however if you are local to Utah, and you know the white barn in Park City, then you can see where my inspiration came from. It also saved me a step from adding and mixing in the red food coloring since all of the frosting comes white in each kit. Hint; you do not have to color any of the frosting if you do not want to! London’s Donut shop is the only one we colored, the rest came with color and white frosting, or we left it as it was.
Setting Things Up for Decorating
Pictured above are all of the kits my mom brought over for everyone to choose from. The extras are going to get raffled off to my sixth grade this class the week before holiday break. All the houses can be found here along with some that are not pictured.
I used one of my many reusable tablecloths. This protected my wood table, made cleanup easy, and added a holiday touch of color for this activity. Mine is from Walmart and can be found on amazon here and Walmart here.
Gingerbread House Hack
Hot glue! Yes! No one is meant to eat this craft project anyways. I feel like we waste so much of the frosting just to “glue” the pieces together. So, this year, we hot glued the houses. Then the kids decorated without worrying about knocking walls down or roof tops off as they worked.
Adding The Details
When it comes to decorating, anything goes!Some of the kids tried to copy the picture on their box, while others just went wild with what they liked. Have fun with it, create some fun memories and like us, we added a few houses to the store-bought gingerbread house in my Holiday Decorating post.
Use What You Have
I ended up getting my frosting bags out with the small tips so the kids could hold the frosting bags easier. I also dug into the sprinkles I have for other holiday projects. This was an easy way to allow the kids to feel like real bakers with their fancy supplies and additional decorations.
Tips and Tricks for Hosting Your Christmas Gingerbread House Party
To wrap things up, here are the things I am glad we did for our party to make it easier. Buy some cute kits that everyone can make their own and be excited about. Have a table cover and space where frosting and sprinkles won’t ruin anything. Grab your hot glue gun and extra decorating supplies if you already have them. Last, set your music to holiday hits and have fun!
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