My daughter is fabulous. She’s funny, smart and creative. She’s also hyper-competitive, evidently. I believe this all started years ago, around the age of 3, when The Complete Package taught her to cheat at CandyLand, but that’s a story for another day.
This weekend, My Baby and I decided to make gingerbread houses. Our intention was to make them with the grandkids, but Lilly Bug fell asleep and Jonah Bear got lost in a pirate movie and their mother and I ended up in a friendly gingerbread competition. Royal frosting waits for no man.
I {of course} thought mine was the cutest. She {naturally} thought hers was the best. So here’s where we’re at. We’ve agreed to post photos of our gingerbread houses and let you be the judge. Literally. Take a look and leave a comment below. We’ll leave the voting open until Monday at midnight central US time, and we’ll let the vanilla coating chips fall where they may. The winner buys the loser a latte at Starbucks.
THE HANSEL & GRETEL HOUSE:
THE CHRISTMAS CABIN:
That’s it, folks. Leave a comment and make your vote count. May the best gingerbread house win. And I promise not to gloat when it’s mine. Maybe.
**UPDATE: And the winner is… **
It was close, but my Hansel & Gretel House (the one smothered in royal frosting) won by 2 reader votes. If you missed the fine print, our deal was that the WINNER would buy the loser a latte at Starbucks, not the other way around. So just after Christmas, I took My Baby and Lilly Bug out for a girls only breakfast at Starbucks. We had pastries and coffee (or vanilla milk) and a fabulous time. So really, there were no losers; just winners. Girly, coffee-loving winners. Thanks for voting! See you again in 2012. -NanaBread
Inside NanaBread's Head 
Though call – the are both quite good. I think, while the Cabin is very good and traditionalist, I am going for the snow frosted Hansel and Gretel! All the best to you both ladies – you both win with a girls outing to Starbucks!
Both are cute, but I prefer the Hansel & Gretel.
I’m sure you had a great time.
I’m a lover of the simplicity and classics. Gotta go with the Christmas Cabin.
Oh, you’re both so creative! I love both houses. But, for the sake of the competition, I’ll throw my vote for #2 – the Cabin. Thanks for sharing your gifts! – Merry Christmas, MoSop
I love them both and must say, I am impressed. Happy holidays.
It was a total tie, but my vote has to go for the Christmas Cabin, even though I think it needed some snow on the roof! But it looks like the H&G hogged all of the royal icing! jk
What fun! BTW my family loved the NutterButter Snowmen…I took a few to my neighbor yesterday and she called this afternoon and said that all of her grandkids made them today and it was a total hit! Now that’s what I call paying it forward!
What talent BOTH of you ladies have! Seriously, those houses could be on the cover of Southern Gingerbread Living or Gingerbread Home & Garden! Typically, I am a very conservative traditionalist. Maybe it’s the Christmas Day spirit, maybe it’s because I’ve eaten everything except for two kids, maybe it’s that lovely roof line, but I just gotta go with Hansel & Gretel! May the best (gingerbread) man win!
Boomer
Ummmm, they are both good looking houses! So, to simplify my choice, I decided on one criteria above all others to help make my decision BEFORE I looked at the photos. That criteria was- Royal Frosting. It had to have tons of frosting and only one house does us that house has fruit roll ups for shingles! I wish my house could have a roof that looked like that!! Good luck to you both, but I’m picking the one smothered in frosting!
Both are totally adorable! I always want to do a gingerbread house but inevitably run out of time around the holidays. I like both – the detail is impressive and so cute! But I prefer the first one. Happy latte drinking to the winner!
Both beautiful, but the creative roof on the Hansel and Gretel house wins :)
They are both incredibly cute! I love the sled on the cabin and whatever roasting on the open fire I guess, but my vote goes to the sugar covered house # 1. I love the round window in the back. Are you both on a sugar high or what????
My vote is for the colorful Hansel & Gretel house! Love the colors and the down right funky look of it.
Oh my god. You did not. This is…awe-inspiring, really. I have never seen any two gingerbread houses like this…Ever.
And you sourced the most perfect candy for decor. Ever.
I’m going to go with the Christmas Cabin for two reasons: 1. I was tickled by the toboggan out back. 2. I was extremely impressed by the architectural touch going on in the eaves of the roof.
Christmas Cabin!
I’m torn. I’d like to sink my teeth into the Hansel & Gretel house. No doubt about that. My dentist is going to love me for it. No doubt about that too. That said, I’m still going with the Christmas cabin cause I loved the little details like the marshmallows roasting over the fire and the sled outside. And like Kat said before me – the architectural touch… wow. Plus it’s nice and neat and straight – and for some very strange reason that’s mightily appealing to Dutch people… ;-)
I’m having trouble deciding. I like that theh Hansel and Gretel house has more icing, and I like the chocolate walkway to the door.
But I love the sled and the wreath on the door of the Christmas Cabin.
I think I have to go with the Hansel and Gretel house just because I have such a sweet tooth for icing.
Rats! I missed the voting. Naturally, that won’t keep me from weighing in on such important matters. ;)
As you sister from another Mister, and Mrs. and state for that matter, I totally get that competitive edge. Both houses are adorable! The candy choices were perfect! For folks that have lived your lives thinking anything under 60 degrees if frigid, you sure did the snowy theme well. ;) But being a lifelong Northerner, I have to go with the Christmas Cabin. The detail of the eaves drew me in, but the toboggan put me over the edge. Guess it’s all the pining we are doing waiting for the big snow to hit. Our toboggans, snowshoes, and skis are getting antsy. The extra shot of vanilla in the winner’s latte is on me!
I actually taught our daughter that cheating doesn’t work. Here is what took place. When our daughter was 3 years old she loved to play CandyLand. It can be fun the first few times you play it, but after playing it six times in a row, it can get a little boring for adults (more on this later).
Now for the rules …. For those of you unfamilair with CandyLand, it is a children’s board game where each person has different colored figure that “walks” a multi-colored path that leads to CandyLand. The person that reaches CandyLand first wins. There is a deck of cards with each card having a color on it. Each turn you draw a card and move ahead to the next occurence of that color on the path. A very few cards have pictures on them. When you draw a picture card you move directly to the picture on the path (this can move you far forwards or backwards). Two picture cards feature prominently in the story, “Plumpy” and “Queen Frostine”. Plumpy appears just a little ways from the start of the path and Queen Frostine appears just a little way from the end of the path. So it is a big advantage to draw the Queen Frostine card and a big disadvantage to draw the Plumpy card.
Now for the story …. after playing CandyLand many times in a row, I would look forward to completing the game quickly, so I would “stack the card deck” so that I quickly drew Queen Frostine and the game would end. After this happening a few times our daughter tried to stack the deck herself (but she very obvious about it being a 3 year old). So after she stacked the deck so that she would draw Queen Frostine quickly, I would restack the deck so that she would draw Plumpy and I would get Queen Frostine. You can imagine her surprise when she was expecting to draw Queen Frostine but instead drew Plumpy. You could see the little gears in her head turn. Then she became REALLY mad when on the next turn I would draw Queen Frostine and quickly win the game. She screamed she was so mad and when I asked why she was mad she said because “she was supposed to draw Queen Frostine”. When I asked her how she knew she was “supposed” to draw Queen Frostine, she knew she was caught cheating.
And that, as Paul Harvey liked to say, “is the rest of the story”.
The moral of this story is two-fold.
1. Never cheat a cheater. And,
2. He didn’t teach her not to cheat; he taught her to cheat smarter. So who schooled whom, really?
OMGosh! Just seeing this Candyland snipet, and I have to admit that both Bacon Slayer & I stack the deck with Queen Frostine, and make sure Plumpy is at the bottom of the pile. I don’t care who draws her, just so that someone does, otherwise that game is longer than Monopoly!
P.S. Yay for girly breakfast at Starbucks!
I read your comment to TCP, who feels totally vindicated in stacking the deck now. Thanks for that. :)
I’m so late…and I do love them both! We skipped Gingerbread houses this year (shhh, don’t tell the boys. :)) but I love how yours turned out.
Happy new Year!
Aloha-