Grove Park Gingerbread Houses

Grand Winner 2013

Gingerbread Houses

All around the country, people are preparing for one of the grandest gingerbread competitions in the U.S.A. The National, annual, gingerbread house contest at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C. The grand hotel was an invention by a pharmacist from Tennessee who had become ill and began staying in Asheville for th fresh air and relaxation, in the 1890s. With the opening of the Biltmore House and the seemingly growing popularity of the area, Grove was able to create what is now a "AAA four-diamond hotel (wikipedia.org, 2014). 

Going on 22 years, this grand resort will be judging 100s of gingerbread creations from kid ages to adults. This competition has been featured on Food Network and brings in professional judges, and the competitor's are already preparing their craft in hopes of winning. From Diagon Alley and Hogwarts to Santa's Village and Historic Homes, competitors lack nothing in the area of creativity and the scene is overwhelmingly Christmas.

Even though, come November, these gingerbread enthusiast will be sweating it out while awaiting the score, I will be home praying my simple gingerbread graham cracker home and marshmallow snowman hold out until Christmas without falling or being eaten. Yep, not everyone is gifted in creating a dreamlike gingerbread scene, but one thing is for sure, Gingerbread is very holiday and nothing says it like the smell of Gingerbread throughout the home.

  

Tips on enjoy Gingerbread:

• Bake and decorate gingerbread cookies with kids. Let them do everything from rolling to decorating, using icing, raisins, holiday semi-sweet morsels, and more. It is a great family event and may become a yearly tradition.
• Get gingerbread scented candles. Easy, no mess to make, still get the smell.
• Build a gingerbread fort using baked gingerbread broken into rock like pieces held together with icing. Bake a few gingerbread men, prop them up against the fort walls or using graham crackers, sprinkle coconut flakes around with crush peppermint to make it look snowy and holiday (I ice blue or red hats on the men because for me the fort is like Valley Forge, I am a BIG Revolutionary War fanatic).
• Bake a gingerbread cake from scratch or the box.

So, even though not everyone can be or feels like taking the time to be a great builder of the treat, it is still fun to enjoy in other ways, and if anyone is around Asheville during the holiday season, check out the Gingerbread competition, it is never disappointing. Happy Christmas!!!!