Topic: Fun for the whole family!

[theANdROId]

So...several years ago, my in-laws began a "somewhat" tradition -- it's only been done twice, but it's something that will definitely happen again, even if not annually or semi-annually.  After building an elaborate (yet cheap) gingerbread house, we demolish it, often to a rewritten traditional Christmas poem or story.  I think it's pretty awesome, so I thought I'd share a few pics!  We've simply burned it 2/2 times, but are talking other possibilities for the future.

[Mooning Freddy]

That's a nice house there. Wouldn't it be better to eat it though? 

[X]

The candy itself would still be good to eat however the gingerbread and frosting might be a little hard and stale. That's the bummer of a gingerbread house unless you eat it on the same day you made it. I've never heard of a burning of gingerbread houses until now. A rather unique tradition.

[Dracula9]

You guys should make a Gingerbreadvania and collapse it instead of setting it on fire.

With Awaken from the Nightmare playing in the background.

[theANdROId]

This house was built with a cheapened gingerbread recipe (made intentionally that way for the sake of the burning.) 

I suppose there are a few important details that help it make more sense.  The slightly longer version:

(click to show/hide)

First of all, my mother-in-law is super health conscious.  She grows nearly all her own veggies, makes almost everything homemade (meals, bread, etc.), "fast food" is only purchased in the most desperate of situations or most exhausted of moments, and "sweets" and other "junk" of any sort are almost never in the house.  Homemade sweets are sometimes "health-ified", but occasionally they're the "real deal" ;-D !  (Allow me to clarify here that foods are still delicious...this isn't "gross" healthy in any way.)

Mom had 7 kids, and the youngest is a bit more crafty than the others were.  The youngest is the one that wanted to make a gingerbread house a few years ago and mom agreed to get the necessary materials.  One older brother, an architect, decided to help by designing blueprints to make quite an elaborate house.  Unfortunately, he messed something up and this first house started to fall in on itself.  Because of this, when the whole family was here, the other older siblings thought it would be hilarious to burn it to that one Christmas story, "T'was the night before Christmas...".
Small houses have been built each year since, but this year the older sibs decided we wanted to burn another giant house.  Knowing it's destiny, they made this one with a gingerbread recipe that mom said tasted terrible and was worth burning, and cheaper candies.  Some stuff did get eaten off, but enough icing was used that it was really hard to get anything off the house.

The ridiculously summarized version:
Mom-in-law rarely has "junk" in the house.  The first house was a special situation to be made, and was already collapsing when sibs thought it'd be fun to burn.  It was fun enough for this crazy crowd that now we (sorta) plan it!


I love the Castlevania idea!!  If I'm ever actually here when the house-making happens, I'm totally doing that!  But...how would you just make it collapse?  You'd have to step on it or drop something on it...that would mess up the effect!

[Dracula9]

I can imagine a really elaborate way to make it happen, but it involves a lot of toothpicks and stringpulls.

[theANdROId]

They were playing around with their ability to film in slo-mo on their iPhones.  I don't have one, but I bet it'd be pretty cool to see such a crumble in slow motion!