Gingerbread House Competition

The competition is held the day after Thanksgiving and hosted at the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek, CO.  There is a professional category, amateur category and children's category.  We viewed the competition several years ago during the annual tree lighting ceremony and I knew I wanted to enter some year.  Since I was home this year and my kids were away, I decided to enter as an amateur.

The title is "Up on the Rooftop" and Santa slid off the roof with the bag of presents.

The gingerbread house was decorated from the inside, out.  You can see the roaring fireplace and decorated Christmas tree.  There is also a living room and a table set for two.

All of the entries are due by noon the day after Thanksgiving.  Here is the amateur table:

I adored the gingerbread house set up next to my gingerbread house.  They had so many good figures and fun things to see.  The house was cute and well proportioned.

This is another of my favorites from the amateur category.  The year I saw the competition, there weren't nearly as many good amateur pieces and I heard others commenting the same.

This is the piece that took 1st place in the amateur category.  There were birds stringing lights all around this multi-storied bird house.

I was happily awarded 2nd place.

Here was my favorite from the professional category.  If you look close, the treehouse is held by gingerbread supports with landscaping below- including a bridge and water wheel.  I wish I would have snapped a photo from the front.  There were more round faced adorable figures.

This entry was done by the woman who has won the competition several times.  There was so much ornate detail work.  The ferris wheel with the gold tips and the train coming through the tunnel carrying packages...it was all so neat.

The winning entry in the professional category was the house below.  The work was very neat and precise.  The rather dark roof was sparkly with glitter.

The sky lit up with fireworks over the ice rink in Beaver Creek Village.

It was definitely a fun experience.  I had about 25 hours into the gingerbread house and all of the houses were auctioned off to benefit CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) so I was happy to see someone walk away with my gingerbread house to enjoy for the holiday season.