This post was sponsored by Annie’s Homegrown.

There are a few things I have to do every Christmas season.  This includes drink hot chocolate, bug Andrew about going ice skating, eventually go ice skating, spend time with family, and build + decorate a gingerbread house.  This was the first year I subbed out the gingerbread for graham crackers and the whole process was MUCH simpler.

Let’s talk structure.  So I scoured pinterest to find a blue print from a reputable gingerbread house designer.  I decided that this structure would do just fine.   The author of that blog is an engineer so I imagine she knew what she was doing, unlike me who felt like I was winging it.  I did branch out and change up my roof a bit from hers, but that structure is still very similar to my house.

For my house “mortar” I used this royal icing recipe because I didn’t have any pasteurized egg whites on hand.  It worked great at keeping the house together.

We’ll pretend I meant to add that dripping icing (aka icicle).  After the house set for about 20 minutes, the icing hardened and I started decorating.  

I knew I wanted a cookie roof, because wouldn’t you want to live in a world with cookie roofs? You probably would.  I mean, it’d be a total “and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries” moment.

So I used Annie’s lemon drop cookie bites for shingles.

And you should know that I’ve got this wonderful little icing decorating bottle and it makes icing things all the easier.  (hello, stocking stuffer!)

If you’re thinking, “does she realize her gingerbread man is bigger than her entire gingerbread house?”

Yes, I do.  

For him, I just rolled Annie’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough into a ball and then I rolled it out into a thin layer and cut out shapes just like you would if making regular gingerbread men cookies.  Then I baked them and since they spread a bit I used the gingerbread cookie cutter to re-cutout the gingerbread man shape.

I also used the chocolate chunk cookie dough to make the stepping stones up to the house and the door knob.

Then I went and cut trimmings off my Christmas tree so I could make a wreath for above the door and scatter trimmings around the house.  For a bit of color I added some Annie’s Bunny Fruit Snacks.

And then a Honey Bunny Graham parade heading up to the door.

I’m still depressed I forgot to add a chimney.  HOW COULD I FORGET THE CHIMNEY?!