Gingerbread House Competition​: Rules & Ideas

There’s a palpable joy in the air as the holiday season approaches each year; it could be excitement for parties, gifts and family traditions like decorating the tree or having a gingerbread house competition. Surely you’ve seen some of those mammoth gingerbread houses, the ones so intricately designed that they look like a 3D mock up you’d find in some expensive architect’s office?

Suffice it to say, decorating a house made of Christmas cookies with frosting and candy isn’t just for the kids. The Guardian details some of the largest and most famous around the world, like the GingerBread Town displayed in Bergen, Norway, which consisted of over 2,000 individual gingerbread buildings. There's also the infamous and official Gingerbread House Competition in Asheville, which we'll get into in this article. If you’re looking to make some of your own holiday traditions and you’ve never considered hosting a gingerbread house competition, let this be your sign. 

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• What Is the National Gingerbread House Competition?
• Hosting Your Own DIY Gingerbread House Competition

What Is the National Gingerbread House Competition?

If you’re feeling quite confident in your artistic and culinary skills and want to put them to the test, with a dash of holiday spirit, the National Gingerbread House Competition might be just the thing you’re looking for. Competitors travel from far and wide to showcase their amazing designs, and with a total of more than $40,000 in prizes for winners, it’s well worth the journey. Even if you’re not interested in making or submitting a gingerbread house, you can visit from mid-November until early January to marvel at the masterpieces on display. 

Where Is the National Gingerbread House Competition Held?

For more than 30 years, the Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa in Asheville has hosted the National Gingerbread House Competition. Hurricane Helen briefly disrupted the festivities, but as of 2025, it’s back to regularly scheduled programming. Competitors of all ages bring their best for the yearly competition that happens in November; it’s an ideal way to kick off the holiday season. 

You can make a family trip of it and stay at the hotel, but if you prefer to marvel in the beauty from a distance, the Gingerbread House Competition finalists are proudly displayed on the event’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Plus, it’s garnered some serious national attention and is typically broadcast by channels like the Today Show, Food Network and others.

What Are the Rules For The National Gingerbread House Competition?

This isn’t your average at-home gingerbread house competition — artisans craft multi-level structures and scenes, so naturally, some rules apply. Your gingerbread entry must be entirely edible, including any additional figures, landscaping, and so on. Additionally, your scene must be at least 75% gingerbread. But it doesn’t have to be a house, per se. Years past have seen gingerbread house ideas like a merry-go-round, sea monster or the Statue of Liberty. 

It’s not just about your structure, either. Competitors must submit a document before the gingerbread house competition that answers several specific questions, such as what inspired their piece. How many hours did they spend crafting it? And how many pounds of gingerbread are present in their submission? The National Gingerbread House Competition website details everything you need to enter the competition officially.

How To Enter The National Gingerbread House Competition & Prize Money?

It’s more than just baking a gingerbread house and sticking some candy canes on it — this Gingerbread House Competition has real judges, and serious cash prizes. When it first started back in 1992, it was no more than a local event designed to get people in the holiday spirit. Today, it’s become highly competitive, with submissions opening in July each year. 

Contestants must follow a set of strict rules, submit a handwritten or typed backstory and hope for the best. There are four divisions for children, youth, teens and adults to compete separately in their own age brackets. The prize money totals more than $40,000, with the exact amounts for the top three in each category unknown. Ribbons are handed out to the top ten in each division, so you still have a chance to bring home something to show for your efforts.

Aside from the obvious best masterpiece overall in the gingerbread house competition, honorable mentions go out to “most unique ingredient” and “best use of sprinkles,” among other things.

As a piece of added holiday cheer, the parking and valet fees for visitors are donated to a local charitable organization. Donations in years past have accumulated to more than $1.1 million, so everyone has something to feel good about.

Hosting Your Own DIY Gingerbread House Competition

If traveling isn’t in the cards (or simply is not of interest), but your competitive spirit burns on, you can have tons of fun hosting your own gingerbread house competition. Decorating a classic gingerbread house can feel wonderfully nostalgic.

There are two main ways to structure your gingerbread house competition. The first involves using a gingerbread house kit — this way, everyone has the same tools at their disposal. It’s also the most time-effective if you’re looking for a work Christmas party idea, for example. The second version has competitors make their own homemade gingerbread, leaving room for a potential baking disaster if you want your gingerbread house competition to be cutthroat. This can also open up competition to gingerbread structures rather than just decorating the house. It’s helpful to come up with rules and guidelines if you’re going to go the fully-DIY route; more on that later!

Using a pre-made kit creates an easy, blank canvas for everyone to put their flair on. It ensures everyone has a house to decorate, though getting it to stand is up to each participant. The nicest part is that it simplifies the whole thing. You don’t have to spend hours mixing dough, baking it and trying to cut it into pieces that will fit together. Just buy the kit, and maybe some extra ingredients for decor, and you’ve got everything you need for a fun gingerbread house competition. It’s also a cherished Christmas craft for kids, who are sure to get a sugar rush from the inevitable snacking on decorations along the way.

Play some Christmas music, enjoy some drinks and snacks and have fun using frosting to glue various candies to your cookie castle. Then, when everyone is done decorating a sweet chalet or a true-crime scene made from cookie dough, everyone can secretly vote on the best design. It’s a fun and low-key Christmas activity to enjoy with loved ones. 

Setting The Gingerbread House Competition Rules

Like any competition, you need to establish some ground rules for your gingerbread house competition, no matter how friendly. The rules will depend a lot on whether or not you’re using gingerbread kits or if people are baking and making their own gingerbread structures. Fewer rules are required with the kits, but things like setting a time allowance and insisting that a structure stand up on its own are applicable to both kits and DIY houses. 

Like the National Gingerbread House Competition, you might want to set the rule that everything used must be edible. If not, you could find participants reaching for actual glue in a desperate attempt to keep their overly heavy structure upright. Royal icing is definitely the best adhesive for your gingerbread house competition, and providing some homemade or store-bought icing will be a necessity. One of the easiest rules to set to ensure everything is fair and equal is that participants can only use what is on the table in front of them. So, be sure to set out a variety of candies and multiple tubes or tubs of icing so everyone can work on their house at the same time. 

If your gingerbread house competition consists mainly of kids, consider whether graham crackers are allowed. They do help with structure and require no time, but they’re certainly not traditional. Even adults may be inclined to use them for ease of construction, but whether you want to allow them is up to you. 

The last thing you will want to do is pre-determine your categories. Obviously, your at-home gingerbread house competition isn’t going to offer tens of thousands of dollars in prize money, but ribbons or gift cards can be fun. Instead of just having the “best” gingerbread house, if you have a larger group, add categories like “most creative,” “most delicious” or “largest structure.”

Easy Gingerbread House Competition Ideas for Adults, Kids & Toddlers

There are nearly endless ways to structure a gingerbread house competition at home. Starting with teams versus individuals. If you’re hosting a holiday party with kids and adults, it’s a good idea to use teams and mix ages so everything is fair. 

After going over rules and guidelines, let the teams or individuals get to work creating magic. Build in some time for their icing to set and offer snacks and an age-appropriate Christmas movie viewing, or an impromptu Christmas movie trivia face-off. As a rule of thumb, you can start with a thirty-minute window to let everyone get their structure together, then about an hour for things to set before they’re ready to decorate. 

How you structure your gingerbread house competition will depend largely on the ages of the participants, the number of people you’re expecting and your overall goal. If you just want a night of family fun and connection with your teens and tweens, keep things simple and let each family member place a piece of paper by their chosen “winner.” Count the pieces of paper at the end and celebrate the winner in a manner of your choosing. Otherwise, go the full-on competition route and have judges and prizes.

Additionally, you can make it less of a gingerbread house competition and more of a cooperative activity. You can have each person make a part of a greater gingerbread scene or theme. This is a fun idea for kids and teens who might love to bring gingerbread into the world of Star Wars, Barbie, Bluey, K-pop Demon Hunters, or their favorite cartoon. 

You might be surprised to know that having an at-home gingerbread house competition can be a learning experience for kids. Not only do they get into their creative minds, but they also learn subtle lessons about architecture and physics. Even adults get a little refresher as they attempt to possibly build multi-level cookie structures. Speaking of adult gingerbread house competition ideas, consider “well-known buildings” as a category! Whether that’s the White House, a famous hotel in your town or even your home, it’s fun to push the boundaries of cookie crafts and creativity. 

As temperatures drop and perhaps snow begins to fall, your body simply knows that the holidays are around the corner. There’s so much joy in pulling out your boxes of decorations, untangling lights to deck your Christmas tree or your home’s exterior. Besides buying and wrapping presents, hanging ornaments on your tree and other festive errands, having a gingerbread house competition is a fantastic way to get into the holiday spirit. It just might become your new favorite tradition, if it isn’t already an old one. You could even enjoy deconstructing the houses together, snacking on them as a Christmas dessert idea (as long as they haven’t gotten stale from days on display).

For even more fun gift ideas around the festive season, check out other experiences happening on Classpop!