Yes the Christmas season is over. But, maybe this could be helpful for the next Holiday season! In 2015, we bought a gingerbread house kit from IKEA. It was around $10, and the box came with pre-cut gingerbread that you had to put together. I have never tried to build a gingerbread house before, so I was pretty excited. This house was rather difficult to assemble, much harder than I thought (I admire all of you who make it from scratch!). And, it only contained the gingerbread part, we had to go out and get all the other stuff to make it with, such as icing and all sorts of candies. We ended up having lots and lots of left over candies.

last year in 2016, we found a much better deal at Costco. It was “Pre-Build” Gingerbread House Kit ($9.79). Yes, Pre-Build!!! And for those of you who doesn’t celebrate Christmas but do Hanukkah, they had Pre-Build Hanukkah House Kit also. I have never seen that before… Good to have consideration for others.

Now, what makes this kit even more awesome is that it comes with everything. And I mean EVERYTHING that you will need to build the house, unless you are a bit more fancy and want to add more stuff to it. It even had icing instruction. Thank you Costco for selling this kit at such low price!

During the holiday, we got the Gingerbread House Kit from Costco out and went at it. Our goal was to make it look like how it shows on the front of the box. It is good have a guideline sometimes. inside the box, we found everything that was promised to contain. All the gingerbread, a house that is pre-build other than a door and a chimney, two icing with tips, red icing, and all kinds of candies. We were all set to go, without needing to go shopping for candies or icing.

I started out with assembling and attaching the door and chimney. Then started decorating with icing, and top it with candies. The instruction said to massage the icing for about a minute for it to get soften, which I followed. But, the icing was still not as soft as I’d liked, but then again, if it is too soft, it doesn’t stay on. Regardless, I can never skillfully apply the icing as artistically as shown on the decoration suggestion photo. I somehow believe those photos are created with really high-end, expensive icing, and put on the house by the hands of real pastry chef… Another thing about the icing was that the decorating tips needed to have good enough openings for them to come out. It is indicated NOT to cut the opening too large, but then, the icing doesn’t come out! I had to cut the tips bigger. Even with the bigger opening, it required a lot of strength to push the icing out. During the midway through, the icing bag started to tear… I managed to continue piping while holding the torn part shut with my fingers.

The small gingerbread men were super adorable. I liked how they were smiling and had indentation on the places where you need to put the decoration. Makes it easy and get to have a unified, controlled look.

And here is the result. It does not look as pretty as the photo on the box, but I think I did a pretty good job. They had just the right amount of icing and candies. There were few candies left, but we had no problem popping them in our mouth. Whoever created this kit really knew the correct amount to put in there.

The hardest part was the wreath on the front, made with holly leaves. Again, it had to be a skillful chef who put that together on the box… I did my best and I think it look pretty nice, if I say so myself. And of course, my husband help out a lot too. We are a good team!

And if you are wondering about the size, here is the house next to a Sockmonkey. It is not too small, not too large, just the right size to me. After sitting next to this delectable house, Santa Sockmonkey could not help himself from getting a bite or two into the gingerbread man… He said that they tasted pretty good.

So, if you are thinking about making a gingerbread house or a Hanukkah house the next Holiday season, but don’t want the hassle, check out the gingerbread house kit from Costco. It is easy, fun, and hassle free!