Gingerbread houses are adorable! And you can’t deny that they smell exactly how the holiday season is supposed to smell. *sniff sniff*
Ever since my daughter was 3 years old, we’ve made a tradition of throwing intimate gingerbread house building afternoons tea parties for friends and family at home. It’s an afternoon of delicious food, holiday music, drinks, dancing and a lot of fun and sticky, frosting-covered fingers. And if you combine all those ingredients together, the perfect holiday activity is making a gingerbread house together! Here’s where you can go to buy yourself some authentic gingerbread houses as well as some less authentic (but still delicious) ones.
Pro Tip: Top up on extra candy at the supermarket. Most kits come with the bare minimum of decorative candies. Also, get yourself a disposable plastic wrap for your table. It’s a lot easier tossing the whole thing out than scrubbing off frosting that dried and caked on your table.
IKEA makes its own DIY kit every holiday season. You can pick them up at the store or order them online. They tend to be a bit thin and minimalistic – just like every piece of furniture in their store. If this is the kit you end up choosing, be sure to stock up on some more decorative candy from the market.
You can find plenty of DIY gingerbread houses on Taobao. The one I’ve been ordering for years is from Le Le. Their cookies are hand crafted and thick so they travel pretty well. They send enough frosting with every house, and two years ago, when we received an order with a cracked cookie, I sent them a photo and they immediately replaced my entire kit for free. 
Pro Tip: If you want to draw detailed patters on the walls, do them before you put your house together.
If you’re super crafty, you can make your own cookies from scratch, and if you want to go even more extra, you can do it in chocolate! Now, I’m no chocolatier, but if you’ve got the skills, a set of silicone gingerbread molds could be just what you’re looking for.
Images: Mina Yan
