Check out these fun ideas for throwing your own gingerbread house decorating party! Download lots of free printables to help make the party extra special!
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Each year we host a gingerbread house decorating party! It is so fun and a great way to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. The first year we decorated houses it was just three of us and since then it has grown a little into a fun family tradition we do with a larger group. This kind of holiday party is perfect for any age and any size group!
I love creating handmade decorations and crafts for the holidays and for this fun tradition. From banners to award ribbons, there are so many fun DIY projects that will make your party extra special! Below are some ideas for throwing a gingerbread house decorating party. At the very end of the post you’ll find a list of links to all of my gingerbread projects and a link to the free printables!
Each year we send out invitations to our party using Paperless Post. The invitations are sent through email and allow you to have a party page to manage your RSVPs and send information to your party guests. They have so many fun invitations that are perfect for a gingerbread decorating party or gingerbread-themed party.
We ask everyone to bring their own pre-built gingerbread house and a candy or decorating element to share. Guests could build the house from scratch before coming but just about all of our guests buy a prepackaged one. This works out well because it comes with icing and some basic decorations.
Our house is pretty decked out for Christmas by the time our party rolls around so there isn’t a lot of extra decorating we do. One of our favorite things to hang up is our gingerbread and peppermint banner. It’s a simple paper banner to make and looks so cute hanging up!
Another cute banner that fits right in with a gingerbread house theme is my peppermint medallion banner! This banner is made from paper and red paint or marker! I’ve also made a coordinating medallion wreath using the same peppermint medallions!
We also hang up these really cute paper wreaths on all of our cabinets! They were a really fun project I did with my Cricut with a cut file by A Little Hut.
Don’t forget to welcome guests with a fun peppermint-themed wreath! This one is simple to make using a foam wreath form and ribbon!
Below you can see a picture from our first gingerbread party. There were just four of us decorating and could fit at one table. Since then we’ve hosted a couple larger parties where we needed several tables. I now try to cover the tables with holiday-themed plastic tablecloths because decorating gets so messy. We set out small containers and muffin tins filled with different decorating supplies – including the ones guests brought to share.
I started making these sweet gingerbread house treat boxes to give everyone at the party. They used them to take home leftover candy and treats from the party! I also have gingerbread boxes that can be colored – a great activity for kids at the party.
One year I made DIY Gingerbread Aprons for the kids that would be joining us. They were really easy to make using white aprons I purchased from Joann Fabrics. I created a North Pole Bakery image to iron on to the front of each apron.
When our gingerbread decorating parties started getting bigger, we started having more treats and food. I found really fun ideas on Pinterest and made holiday-themed food like strawberry Santa hats, vegetable trays, cupcakes and more.
You can download these little gingerbread cupcake toppers from my Free Resource Library!
They are easy to make! Download the file, print them on white cardstock and then cut them out. You can put two together with a toothpick in-betwen them using double-sided tape to stick them together. When I made mine I didn’t worry about being too perfect with my cutting, and once they were taped together, I trimmed them a bit to even out any imperfections.
We also like to make an amazing hot cocoa with a recipe from Crystal, over at Mrs Happy Homemaker. It was so good on its own or with a little Peppermint Schnapps added to it :)
One year we decided to get really fancy and we added voting and awards! After everyone was done building their houses we lined them all up on a table and had everyone vote. I created score sheets and paper award ribbons. It was SO fun to do these little awards and afterwards our guests had fun taking pictures of themselves with their house and it’s award. We did the voting before eating dinner (usually pizza we had delivered) and then I had a chance to tally the votes.
These award ribbons are another free printable you can download from my Resource Library. They come with the voting sheets and printables to make your own award ribbons for each category. Below is a picture from one of our parties, it isn’t the best picture but you can see how we laid out the ribbons after the voting sheets were tallied.
We love hosting these parties and hope to do another one soon! Last year we didn’t host one but we got together with a couple family members over Zoom and decorated gingerbread houses. It was a lot of fun and it kept our tradition going! :)
Here is a list of all of the different craft tutorial I have related to our gingerbread house parties! Some of them are activities kids can do at the party or favors guests can take home with them.
I hope you enjoyed this post and have a fun holiday season!
Download the Free Files! I mentioned a lot of free files in this post! They are all located in my free Resource Library! They can all be found under Christmas. Enter your first name and email to get the password to download this file. You’ll also have a chance to sign up for my newsletter to receive fun craft tutorials, tips, updates and more FREE files to help make crafting something special and unique easier!
