The holidays are a great time of year to get together with friends and family. And who doesn’t love a great holiday themed party? A gingerbread house party is a great way to bring everyone together to create fun holiday memories – it’s fun for kids and grown-ups, too. Today, we’ve pulled together our best tips for hosting a stress-free gingerbread house party that everyone will love.
How to Host an Annual Gingerbread House Party
Our family has been hosting an annual gingerbread house party for the last 3 years. As we add more kids, the gingerbread party has evolved, but so has our planning process. Here are our top tips and tricks for a successful gingerbread party this holiday season. This also makes a really fun family activity and would be a great tradition to start even if you choose not to throw a whole party. These tips are still helpful to make your event fun and memorable!
Choose a Date
First things first. You’ll need to choose a date for your gingerbread house party. This sounds obvious, but the holiday season can quickly become busy – so getting your party on the calendar early will help make sure that you have time to plan and that your guests have time to make plans to attend. We recommend sending invitations 4-6 weeks in advance if you can, but no later than 2 weeks to give time for guests to make plans.
Set the Mood
Next, set the mood. This might mean creating a special holiday playlist (or just turning on your favorite holiday station) and playing it quietly in the background. Having a favorite Christmas movie playing in the living room for guests to enjoy when they are finished building their gingerbread houses is also a good option. Additionally, you may want to have a few other kid-friendly activities prepared that require little instruction for little ones who work quickly on their gingerbread houses or who might choose not to build a gingerbread house. Holiday themed coloring sheets are great for this. Just grab a holiday coloring book and tear out the pages, or print coloring sheets from the web. Put out a few crayons and that’s it. The kids will love it. (And the parents will appreciate the extra effort!)
Choose the Menu
No holiday party is complete without tasty treats! Depending on the time of day of your party, you’ll want to plan a mix of sweet and savory treats for guests to enjoy. For fun holiday treat ideas be sure to check out these unique treats or these Paleo inspired treats for some healthy alternatives!
Keep it Simple with a Kit
Now, we did say, this was a stress-free gingerbread house party. And the easiest way to keep it stress free is to use Gingerbread House Kits from Bee International. Each kit includes everything you need for your gingerbread house including candy favorites and pre-made icing, which means you don’t have to spend extra time guessing how much candy you need or making icing. It also means that you don’t need to spend hours the night before the party preparing gingerbread houses for everyone.
Unlike traditional gingerbread house kits, Bee International’s gingerbread cottage kits feature a unique Link & Lock design with notched panels for each piece of your gingerbread house. How many times have you built the perfect gingerbread house only to have it collapse while you were adding candy decorations because the icing hadn’t hardened all the way or had to explain the need to be patient to your young child?
These gingerbread kits can be put together (just like a puzzle, which is really fun for kids) and then decorated right away. You can even choose from classic kits with traditional candies, as well as those featuring popular brands such as NERDS, SweetTARTS, Runts and Bottlecaps, and Tootsie Rolls.
They even have a PAW Patrol kit which is guaranteed to be a favorite for preschoolers! Be sure to be on the lookout for these Gingerbread House Kits in most major retail stores this holiday season!
SHOP:
Gingerbread Cottage Kit
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Stay Flexible & Enjoy the Day
Finally, the most important tip for any event – and especially one that involves kids: stay flexible and enjoy the day. Sure, messes will be made. The kids might even miss naps. But, you’ll also be creating new fun memories that will last longer than the last piece of candy on your gingerbread house masterpiece.
Photo Credit: Ashley Sisk
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