Gingerbread mansion

When we were at the Baja Bistro for Liz's birthday party, we saw the gingerbread "mansion" that Chef Arthur and helpers had created:

It is quite the magnificent creation!

I have former neighbors who have had a Christmas "building" contest over the past few years determining who can build the best "structure" -- mom Sherie puts pictures of the creations on Facebook and the creator of the one that gets the most votes gets to pick what movie the family will see during the week after Christmas.

My favorite year was 2017 -- here are Sherie's posts from that year:

Merry Christmas Family & Friends!! We tried our hand at Gingerbread creations again this year. Please vote on your favorite to determine who will get to pick the family movie we will go see this holiday break. Please vote by Thursday 12/28. Thanks!!

#1 Discount Polar Express

#2 The Yuletide Singularity draweth nigh: a Christmas particle accelerator

#3 Snow Tubing at your own risk

#4 Reason for the Season

#1 Discount Polar Express

# 2 The Yuletide Singularity draweth nigh: a Christmas particle accelerator

#3 Snow Tubing at your own risk

#4 Reason for the Season

Update after the voting:

Kristin would like to thank all of you who voted for #4. Once again, she gets to pick the movie we will attend!

For the rest of you wondering - Philip made #1; Kory of course did #2 as most of you probably figured out knowing his creative sense of humor & I did #3 after getting so frustrated and breaking my pieces and thinking that sort of looks like it could be a mountain, lol!

Just a little background...I tried to get 4 identical houses but the store only had 3 train sets left. We put all the pieces in the middle of the table and went around one by one taking one piece at a time. We then tried to create something based upon the pieces we got. Philip got lucky in getting most of the train pieces.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wishing you a wonderful New Year!!! Thanks for voting!!

 I thought that was such a neat way to "make lemonade out of lemons" -- when there aren't enough pieces, figure out what you can do with the pieces you end up with!