Not many DIYers take it upon themselves to build a house. When my wife and I decided to try, we chose a medium and size that fit our skills and budget: gingerbread.

This has several advantages:

• You can eat your mistakes.
• All construction is indoors, so you don’t have to worry about the weather.
• Baking the construction materials makes the house smell good.
• All construction materials, including the cement, are edible.

Material preparation consists of finding a house you like, creating a 1:1 scale pattern of the design and baking the pieces and setting them aside until you’re ready for construction. We usually do this during the week leading to the Big Day.

Construction involves a lot of royal icing (egg whites, powdered sugar, and lemon juice), coffee cups, craft sticks, cursing and/or praying. It is not until the construction phase that you find out exactly how good your baking skills are. Pieces can break under their own weight. It is very similar to constructing a house of cards, except you use icing to hold pieces together.

Once construction is finished, you walk away for a day or so. Build a makeshift fence out of whatever you have on hand to keep curious kitties from jumping up on the table to explore the new construction. Letting it sit gives the icing a chance to harden; a crucial step since during the Big Day, people will be pushing, poking, and prodding the house.

The final step, the Big Day, is decoration. A gingerbread house without decorations of whimsical candies is just a brown box. Get creative. When looking at candy, try to think of construction materials they resemble (if those materials were painted by inebriated faeries). Consistency helps in some areas; the roof particularly looks better if it’s made from one type of material (fruit ribbon candy in this case).

In the end, you have a glorious centerpiece for your holiday decorations, and a fun activity for the whole family!