a gingerbread village

i know christmas is over, but i just had to post about all these gingerbread houses!

(and the reason i made a house from scratch)

this year i was asked to be in charge of our church christmas party decorations. 

the theme we came up with was "home for christmas."  so we tried to do something around that.  i wanted to do something that cost little or no money from our limited budget.  i wanted to get as many people involved as i could.  and i wanted to do something different. 

so i came up with the idea to ask people to sign up to bring gingerbread houses as our centerpieces.  we started announcing it right after halloween so people had plenty of time to get ready.  although i'm pretty sure nobody made their houses until the week of the party. (me included) 

honestly, this idea caused me more stress than it should have!  i found that people either loved the idea or hated it.  and these texans were not afraid to let me know. 

the night of the party i was stressing out about having enough houses to fill all the tables, but in the end we had exactly enough houses.

i made little award ribbons that we gave to every house.  everyone was so creative!  a  Y mountain?  seiously?  how cool is that?  the nativity is a gingerbread house kit they remodeled into a stable.  so so cute!