Gingerbread House Throwdown - The RETURN!

After last year's fiasco when we could not find a premade gingerbread house anywhere in the vicinity of Sam's place in North Carolina and therefore weren't able to do our annual decorating throwdown competition, all was right with the world and we were able to do it this year.  Except that Sam wasn't able to come out here for Christmas, being as he'd used up the last of his vacation for his visit here for Thanksgiving and our subsequent trip to Orlando, so that made for a different day.  This was the first Christmas since he was born that we haven't spent it together...as a parent of grown children, you know that is always a possibility, but it's still weird when that day actually arrives.

We made the best of it.  Of course Allie still came - it helps to live within driving distance, that's for sure!  We weren't planning on doing gifts because the Orlando trip was our gift, but we did have fun with stocking stuffers, and I filled a stocking for Sam and mailed it to him last week.  We FaceTimed in the morning as we all opened our stockings, which was entertaining, and we've been rewatching the Harry Potter movies and remembering our recent trip.

But I know you are here for the Gingerbread House Decorating Throwdown pictures, not really a Christmas day recap, so here they are:

The winner - DANG IT:

Team Hug It Out, Bitch created the Krustyland ride, complete with Marge Simpson (check out her purple gumdrop hair), Bart, and Lisa.

Yeah, yeah...someone was pretty pleased with himself when he revealed the house.

This was our view - we had no idea what he was making.  Jeff had consulted with Sam beforehand, but wasn't able to FaceTime with him during the throwdown as Sam was spending Christmas day with friends.

Allie and I thought we had a winner this year.  Our theme was Hansel and Gretel:

So pretty, right?  Team Awesome for the win...until we saw Krustyland.  We just couldn't beat that one.

In the tradition of Hansel and Gretel, we made our house appealing to children, with all kinds of candy coverings...but wait:

FREE CANDY???  That sounds enticing!  

Oh no!!!  There's a witch who is in the process of eating Gretel, while Hansel has just been boiled in a cauldron and is in line to be eaten next!  The sweet gingerbread house has turned into a house of horror!

Yes, my child has a warped sense of humor.  I guess I do as well since I went along with it.  But Krustyland won out:

The marshmallow teeth on Krusty's mouth, along with his hair, just killed us.

We awarded ourselves extra points for decorating all sides (and the roof) of our house, but we still lost.

It was fun to do this again, and while I'm sad that Sam wasn't here to participate in person, I have a feeling that with his help, Krustyland would have been even more spectacular and I'm not sure Allie and I could have stood the beatdown.  But this was a fun way to spend time together on Christmas day, and I'm glad we got to continue our tradition.