From twinkling lights to merry wreaths, decorating for the holiday season is in full swing, and one family in Salt Lake City, Utah, took things to the next level by turning a house into a real-life gingerbread house.
Fox13 reported that Virginia Hoffman’s Tudor home transformed into a full-size candy palace.
“It’s all homemade, and it’s all been kind of ‘figure it out as you go,'” Hoffman told the outlet.
Photos of the house were also published on Reddit by Hoffman’s daughter. Colorful candies lined the roof and were perched on the railings, while candy canes were mounted over the front door. A gingerbread man stands tall in the front lawn and vanilla wafers served as window shutters.
According to Fox13, Hoffman noticed her red brick home could resemble a gingerbread house with the right decorations.
“I told my family about it and luckily they didn’t think I was crazy,” she said. “And so we painted these gumballs in the kitchen over Thanksgiving of 2019, and then my daughter and son-in-law helped me figure out how to attach them to the house.”
Her husband, a professional artist, and her grandchildren all found ways they could pitch in and bring the holiday house together.
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Viewers of the Reddit post that featured photos of the house applauded the efforts.
“That’s really magical and I’m sure kids in the neighborhood love it,” a commenter wrote.
Another commented: “I’m obsessed with this. Please tell your mom that she’s incredibly talented at crafting too!”
Hoffman said the vanilla wafter window shutters were created by using foam and insulation. Her husband melted the squares out of it with a soldering irony and she painted them.
Some joked it looked similar to the witch’s house in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”
“For the sake of the neighborhood kids I gotta ask, how big is her oven?” one Reddit user wrote.
Newsweek reached out to Virginia Hoffman for additional comment.
Other people have shown off their creativity around the holiday season with their own decorations. Newsweek recently reported on a TikToker whose holiday light display on his house went viral.
The Tiktoker, @htown_frankie, posted a video that shows one of the light displays he put together set to DMX’s Ruff Ryders’ Anthem. The video has gone viral and earned more than one million views.
Green, red, blue and white lights are part of the display, along with Christmas trees, light projections on the garage door and a light fixture in the yard.