Christmas Movie Gingerbread House Party Idea

Turn your annual tradition of making gingerbread houses into something even more fun by hosting a gingerbread house party where everyone makes gingerbread houses inspired by their favorite Christmas movies! It’s a great way to mix up the tradition and to encourage people to get more creative with their creations!

Christmas Gingerbread House Night

Last year we decided to combine our annual Christmas movie night and annual gingerbread house party by making Christmas movie inspired gingerbread houses while watching our favorite Christmas movies!

We did this with our family, and it was still one of my all-time favorite Christmas activities we’ve ever done, even over our annual Christmas bingo and Christmas Family Feud game!

My family is super competitive so I knew we’d have some pretty amazing creations, but I never imagined what people would actually come up with. We had everything from Grinch’s cave house to the RV from National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation.

The final houses people made were amazing but the best part – it was so much fun!

The possibilities are endless when it comes to picking out supplies, but I’ve included some of our go-to supplies when making gingerbread houses! I used a bunch of these for my Halloween gingerbread house party too!

• Graham crackers – go with graham crackers instead of gingerbread because they can be used in so many different creative ways and are much easier to cut and break into small pieces! I recommend having way more than you think you’ll need of these! You can always use leftovers in s’more cookies later!
• Icing – I love this gingerbread icing recipe. We just did white to keep things cleaner but you could do various colors as well! We gave everyone one piping bag full of icing and then had some extras on hand in case people ran out.

• Pop-tarts – holiday ones would be awesome.
• Candy canes – a variety of colors and sizes.
• Cookies – this can be anything from homemade gingerbread cookies to Christmas Oreos to wafers. I also really like the long Piroulines!
• Pretzels – I’m putting these in a category by themselves because you can have a bunch of different kinds. Circles, squares, sticks, rods, all make great additions.
• Gummy candies – gumdrops, Mike’n’Ikes, Life Savers, Jelly Beans, Christmas shapes, licorice, and so on. Make sure to get some circles for windows and wreaths!

• Sprinkles – make sure to have a variety of shapes and sizes.
• Chocolate – this can be anything from Hershey bars to Ferro Roche to Reese’s Tree.
• Christmas cereals – this is an easy way to get a lot of fun shapes and colors, plus cereals like Cinnamon Toast Crunch make for great shingles!
• Peeps – or other holiday shaped treats.
• Coconut flakes – great for making snow.
• Marshmallows – can be used pretty much anywhere.
• Cotton candy – it was amazing to see what people did with cotton candy for these movie themed gingerbread houses!

Do what works best for your group and budget! Since buying all the supplies can add up quickly, consider having people bring supplies to share. You can always assign them to specific things like bringing a box of graham crackers, but I recommend a variety of items so people can get creative!

Setting up your gingerbread house party isn’t too tough, but I do have some tips to make it as smooth as possible!

1 – Setup Your Space

Start by getting a headcount of how many people and (if people will be working individually or in pairs) are coming then setup your space (and supplies) accordingly. You want to make sure that everyone will have adequate space to build their creations and that they’ll also be able to see the movie! You want to make sure that each person or team working together has:

1. A baking sheet or piece of large cardboard with parchment paper
2. A piping bag full of icing (at least one)
3. Space at the table for their baking sheet + plates around it

Setup tables and chairs so that everyone has the space they need and so they can also watch the movie while you’re building. It is a Christmas movie night after all!

Add plastic tablecloths to each of the tables to protect your tables from the icing (an for quicker cleanup after your gingerbread house party is over).

2 – Put Out Your Supplies

I recommend putting out your supplies on kitchen counters, on a kitchen island, or if you’re doing this with a small group you could even just do a big gingerbread charcuterie board in the center of the table if you’d prefer.

Make everything as easy to reach as possible by putting things in bowls, trays, or even snackle box containers.

If you buy multiple boxes of the same toppings, I recommend putting out one box at a time and keeping the others closed until the first ones get used up. You never know what people are actually going to use and if they don’t use them, you can always use those extras for something else or return them.

Okay, now that you’re all setup, it’s time to make some critical decisions for your party. Then it’s time to build!

1 – Choose Your Party Parameters

Figure these three things out before everyone arrives – you’ll want to have a game plan set before people show up and start providing their opinions.

• Will this be a competition or just for fun? – Are you doing a gingerbread house building competition where either one person will win the best house or maybe you’ll give out awards for different categories? If so, determine how you’ll judge the houses (we used social media) and what your categories will be.

• How long will people have? – Set a time limit based on the amount of time you have for your gingerbread house party. People will continue working on things as long as you let them. I’d say no longer than an hour but you could do the entire length of a Christmas movie.
• How will you choose who gets which movie? – Will you let people just build whatever they want or will you assign movies (or have them draw out of a hat)? Or if two people want to build from the same thing, have them play rock paper scissors for rights to a movie? Do you care if two people do something from the same movie?

2 – Make the Houses

Now is the fun part! Give people a few minutes at the beginning of the night to choose what they want to make and get their supplies to get started (they can always refill as they go).

Then it’s time to build! Put on a Christmas movie and let people build away!

There’s no right way to build a gingerbread house but if you want to give people some tips, here are a few that we’ve learned over the years!

Take the time to make icing, having icing specifically designed for gingerbread houses makes a world of difference. It’s keeping those buildings nice and strong, meaning way less gingerbread towers falling down.

Start with a sturdy base like a cookie sheet, cake board or a thick paper plate. There’s nothing worse than losing all your hard work because your plate broke when you picked it up. And these creations aren’t going to be just standard gingerbread houses you can pick up – they’ll likely be intricate and involved!

For the easiest cleanup, put a disposable tablecloth down. When you are done, simply pick up the edges, taking are to fold all the crumbs and pieces inside the table cloth and throw it away.

For the most fun, pair younger kids with adults. Or have two divisions so kids aren’t competing with the adults for prizes.

Keep the mansions as decorations or eat them bit by bit until they are gone. I like to keep Amazon or Costco boxes before the gingerbread house party for people to take their creations home in! When they’re on parchment paper, you can typically actually move them from one place to another without absolute destruction!

3 – Choose a Winner

If you decided to do a competition (my favorite!), choose a winner. There are a handful of ways you can do this – choose based on whatever is easiest for you! Also, if you have various ages competing, you can do a kids competition and an adults competition to keep things fair!

• Post pictures to social media and give people an hour to vote on their favorites (while people finish up the Christmas movie or play some other Christmas party games like Christmas charades or Christmas outburst).
• Have everyone vote – number each of the creations and have everyone vote for their favorite (other than their own). I recommend having people write their name on their voting sheet so you can make sure they aren’t’ voting for their own.
• Choose judges – have people who don’t want to participate in the building? Make them judges to choose the winners. Just make sure they’re unbiased judges! You could even make people who aren’t there be the judges. We sent my parents pictures without any insight into who made what and they chose our winners!

Alternately, you could give out prizes for different categories rather than one overall winner. Some category ideas we came up with include most colorful, most creative, most innovative, most challenging build, most unique use of supplies, and so on. Don’t tell people the categories beforehand, just give out awards at the end!

Want more fun Christmas party ideas? Try out one of these Christmas party themes next!

• Gift exchange themes – pick a theme and host a gift exchange where everyone enjoys fun treats like these present shaped Christmas Oreo balls and plays gift exchange games!
• Christmas game night – invite family and friends over to play some Christmas games. Whether you choose reindeer games, candy cane games, or even nutcracker games – there are games for everyone!
• 12 days of Christmas party – do a 12 days theme with things like 6 drinks (hello holiday punch and homemade wassail) for drinking and 12 days inspired favors tied up with these cute 12 days of Christmas gift tags!
• Christmas craft night – spend the night making cute crafts like these DIY Christmas ornaments or these handprint Christmas crafts!
• Nutcracker party – whether you watch the ballet or not, this whimsical theme is always a fun one!