How to Host a Gingerbread Themed Party

Why to Have a Gingerbread House Party

To all you bakers who live for the month of December: don’t just throw a generic Christmas party; embrace your love of the holidays and baking with a gingerbread house party! Building gingerbread houses together is a fun way to simultaneously bring out everyone’s inner child and potentially budding inner structural engineer/architect. Even if you aren’t super skilled in the kitchen, baking gingerbread cookies is a simple joy to share with your friends for the holiday season. Despite our busy and complicated lives, we are all ultimately simple people. Give us something to build with our hands, something to eat, and friends to chat with, and we have ourselves a memorable party.

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How to Throw a Gingerbread House Party

1. Turn Your Home into a Gingerbread Wonderland

You know you’ve decorated successfully when someone walks in and immediately knows what kind of party they’re at. Decorating can be really fun, especially when you’re creating a colourful gingerbread fantasy! Though it can get pricy depending on how elaborately you decorate, you can usually find inexpensive party supplies if you know where to look. Besides, having a party is a more cost-effective way to have fun! It just boils down to how you most enjoy spending your leisure time and how you allocate your spending to prioritize that. Decorating, likewise, needn’t be grandeur if it doesn’t help your budget. The right small touches can still perfectly create a scene! And, with a little time and motivation, you can DIY your gingerbread decorations. Get some construction paper and cut out gingerbread men, decorate them in colourful designs, and make a paper train garland or hang them individually from the ceiling.

Here are some gingerbread themed decorations to give you some inspiration and get you started:

• Gingerbread man/peppermint banner
• Gingerbread man/house party banner
• Felt gingerbread house banner
• Glitter gingerbread man banner
• Gingerbread cups
• Gingerbread plates
• Gingerbread man-shaped napkins or square gingerbread napkins

2. Bake Gingerbread Cookies (and Prepare Other Food and Beverages)

Eating gingerbread is the perfect way for your guests to engage with this party’s theme through their sense of taste!  It may seem logical that a culinary staple at a gingerbread house party would be, well, a gingerbread house. But let’s be clear: trying to whip up a gingerbread house to serve your guests will at best take loads of your time (at least four hours before you can even decorate) and will at worst leave you cursing like a sailor. It is best to serve gingerbread cookies and other such ginger cousins (treats, not Weasleys).

Leave the gingerbread house baking to the food manufacturers and just buy their kits. That way, you and everyone else at your party will have time to build their house and relax and have a drink in it (or have a drink while pretending to be in it). So if you want a party where everyone is cheerful and having a good time, pre-made gingerbread house kits are your best bet! They aren’t expensive, and if you’re having more than a handful of friends over, you could easily request that everyone BYOG (bring your own Gingerbread house kit).

Rest assured that ginger by nature is friendly to stomachs. And gingerbread is not as incredibly sweet as the plethora of other treats that fall under the holiday umbrella. But you obviously still need to provide actual non-gingerbread foods. For that, any seasonal refreshments will do! Be aware of any invited guests’ dietary restrictions and provide at least one or two decent food/drink options for them as well.

3. Set a Candy-Happy Gingerbread Ambience with Cheerful Holiday Music

For cheerful background music with a cosy gingerbread house visual, play this relaxing winter music playlist (think North Pole sister town of Hobbiton). Or you could play traditional Christmas music, such as this jazzy piano Christmas playlist. Background music is key for a party’s vibe. Your specific choice of music doesn’t matter as long as it keeps the spirit playful! So if you want people to easily converse over their gingerbread house construction, don’t max out the volume to more intense tunes. Whatever beats you choose, keep it low enough to easily hear each other at normal voices.

4. Add Enticing, Sugary Scents

We covered the sights, the flavors, and the sounds that complement a gingerbread house party. What better way to round out the sensory experience of gingerbread than with the smell of it baking in the oven? You’ll surely want to prepare enough gingerbread cookies in advance, but save at least one batch and pop it in the oven just before guests begin to arrive. They’ll delight at the aroma when they walk in. But since no host wants to be preoccupied with baking cookies during an entire party, light some gingerbread candles to keep the festive scent alive during the party’s duration!

5. Plan Gingerbread Games or Activities

Watch out, HGTV. Your gingerbread house decorating contest is about to be the hottest competition of the holiday season! Unless you plan to provide a gingerbread house kit for each guest, have them BYOG so they are prepared for this competition. You could even have everyone choose a theme for their house. Provide plenty of additional candies so they have decorating options. After whatever time limit you set, have everyone vote on the best house to decide the winner.

If anyone is short a gingerbread house kit, don’t leave them hanging. Plan to bake and decorate gingerbread men cookies, too! It will be an easier and just as satisfying way to create delicious designs.

Are there any guests who don’t yet know each other? Have everyone introduce their selves by playing the ‘What’s Your Gingerbread Name Game’ printable download and wearing their helpful nametag. It won’t be hard to remember these names!

6. Establish Guest Participation

Guest participation at a gingerbread house party entails BYOG, or bringing your own gingerbread house decorating kit. But if you’d rather provide kits for guests but have several people coming, you could always choose to assign one for every two guests and have them decorate in pairs. It’s a fun way to build teamwork!

Other examples of guest participation include bringing food to share and/or BYOB. Whatever you decide, just make sure you make this clear when you initially invite your guests.

Checklist of Items You Need for a Gingerbread House Party

This is a list of all of the physical things you need for this party:

1. Gingerbread party decorations
2. Gingerbread house decorating kit(s)
3. Gingerbread cookies
4. Refreshments (i.e. normal food, and drinks)
5. Music/speakers
6. Gingerbread candle(s)
7. Supplies for games/activities (i.e. disposable tablecloth for house decorating, printed downloads)

Checklist of Preparations for Your Gingerbread House Party

1. First, establish that your efforts aren’t in vain by confirming that people can come on any chosen date:

1. Choose party date/time, and preferably alternative date(s) as well
2. Choose guest list and establish minimum number of guests you’d like (to make it worth your effort)
3. Six weeks out, confirm guests’ interest in the party and availability on chosen party date(s)
4. If your preferred minimum number of guests confirm interest and availability, have them secure calendar date for your awesome gingerbread party!

2. Then, proceed with the fun planning:

1. Schedule time on your calendar for each step of party prep (securing and/or making food/drinks, cookies, etc.)
2. Create invitations with all of the details and send them out 4 weeks before the party
3. Order any party supplies and decorations 3 weeks out (so they arrive in time to prepare and set up)
4. Shop for any party supplies/decorations you don’t order online, as well as non-perishable food/drinks
5. In your planned time slots, DIY any gingerbread decorations
6. In your planned time slots, acquire perishable food/drinks early enough in advance to prepare in time
7. In your planned time slots, set up/decorate with any supplies and decorations
8. In your planned time slots, prepare food/drinks (depending on how long things keep)

3. Day of Party (in your amply planned time slot):

1. Complete any last-minute food/drink prep that’s too fresh to do any earlier
2. Set up any quick/easy last-minute supplies and decorations you didn’t want up before
3. Prepare gingerbread ambience with music, baked cookies and/or candles
4. Get dressed in your favourite gingerbread party outfit
5. Once everything’s ready, meditate or do your preferred self-care to get in a good head space if you aren’t already. You want to be relaxed, energized, and excited. You will be happier, and guests will pick up on your contagiously good vibe and automatically be happier as well – everybody’s best interest!

If you want to explore more fun Christmas-themed parties, check out these others:

• Pink Christmas party
• Elf party
• Nutcracker themed party
• German Christmas party
• Winter Solstice party