Decorating a gingerbread house for the holiday season is a fun tradition for the whole family. The themes and ideas to decorate a gingerbread house are endless.
Most gingerbread house themes are simple and easy to create.
Before you start decorating, consider how you will create your gingerbread house. You can make a gingerbread house from scratch, which could take many hours or purchase a gingerbread house kit and decorate right away.
Consider what style of gingerbread house you want to build and decorate. Will it be a login cabin, traditional gingerbread house, or unique? Also, think about what type of gingerbread house candy you would like to add.
Here are gingerbread house ideas to inspire you this holiday season.
- Gingerbread House Decorations Ideas
- Easy Gingerbread Houses Ideas
- Unique Gingerbread Houses Themes
- Cool Gingerbread Houses Themes
- Popular Gingerbread Ideas in 2021
1. Gingerbread House with Traditional Decorations Ideas
This traditional style gingerbread house is what anyone would envision when thinking about decorating a gingerbread house during the holidays. The whimsical colors of the gumdrops and hard candies are eye-catching and fun. The perfectly squishy looking trees and wreath above the door bring out the holiday-feel and also looks delicious! Our favorite is the use of the white frosting for the beautifully sheeted snow on top of the house.
2. Modern Gingerbread House with Chocolate Decorations Ideas
This modern chocolate gingerbread house looks too delicious not to eat! The use of the milk chocolate and white chocolate Kit Kat bars creating a checkered foundation for the walls makes for a unique gingerbread house look. The chocolate creates a look of a roof that is lightly dusted in the snow is smart as you won’t need to use too much frosting for this one. The red and green from the wreath adds a beautiful pop of color and hints at which season this is for.
3. Candy Roof Gingerbread House Ideas
This roof design is easier since it contains four gingerbread pieces compared to the six pieces that would be used for a traditional gingerbread house. The giant, colorful sweet tarts used for the roofing is the focal point of this gingerbread house. The intricate white frosting designs on the front of the house adds a feminine touch, while the greenery used around the house ties everything together.
4. Small Gingerbread House with Green Decorations
This small and green gingerbread house design has charming details. The house has red and green candies used as Christmas lights on the roof and a short chimney. The use of accessories like the snowman with the green hat, the candy canes and peppermint candies at the doorway, and use of gummies throughout really create a cute Christmas time feeling.
5. A Large Gingerbread House with Stylish Frosting Ideas
If you have a gingerbread house mold that is quite large, this large gingerbread house with stylish frosting patterns and templates can be a sweet inspiration for you. Framing the first floor of the house with large trees and adding a colorful bunch of candies surrounding the house is a nice touch. The fluffy white frosting on the roof with confetti sprinkles creates a playful touch to the elegant frosting designs on the front of the house.
6. Classic Gingerbread House Decorations Ideas
The classic gingerbread house-made small and compact and an excellent testament of what you can accomplish with just two simple ingredients. Although there are quite a few decorative flourishes, such as the hard candy and gumdrop window accents, most of the house is constructed from just clever use of frosting. With just a few pattern changes, you can create a diverse pattern that mirrors tiles if you only have gingerbread and icing available. Multi-colored candies like Sixlets make for a subtle but beautiful shingle effect that is both visually arresting and tasty as well.
7. Cute Pink Gingerbread House Ideas
A fun take on the traditional gingerbread house with more emphasis placed on the front of the house. Multi-colored gumdrops form a narrow little path out of the snow, bringing more focus on the frosting and candied details of the front door. From frosting mistletoe, peppermint centerpieces and Mike&Ike window frames; the bright pink aesthetic provides a vibrant and cheery feel that your typical gingerbread colors don’t provide.
8. Gingerbread House with Frosting Icicles and Powdered Sugar Snow
The frosting icicles with powdered sugar snow gingerbread house paints the picture that Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause are inside next to a fire looking at the ‘naughty and nice’ list. The use of the gingerbread cookies and powdered sugar snow around the gingerbread house helps to create an inviting and winter feeling. The perfectly symmetric details from the frosting windows to the peppermint on the roof, are cozy and cute.
9.Traditional Gingerbread House With Gumdrop Roof
Any kid’s dream as they think of gingerbread houses and with so much variety of tasty candies to eat and best of all, just about anyone can make this house. Gumdrops, hard candies and Sixlets dot the roof, offering you more color than just your typical gingerbread and frosting. The same candy combination also provides more color to your lawn and window accents. Symmetry is always lovely, but for a traditional house like this, imperfection offers more of a classic gingerbread charm.
10. Login Cabin Decoration House Decor Using Pretzel Sticks
The modern log cabin design using pretzel sticks is an excellent inspiration for those who love the outdoors and a more rustic look. You can tell with the icicles along the roof, and white frosting touches within the cookie tree that it is winter time and cold. The login cabin style can be simple look without the use of bright colors and having its focal point being the pretzel sticks for the log cabin walls.
11. Sugar Encrusted Gingerbread House with Frosting Decoration
The sugar encrusted gingerbread house with frosting design has an almost artificial look to it as it has meticulous and hardened frosting and candy details. The sugar adds a hint of glimmer and fun to this unique gingerbread house. This particular gingerbread house would look great as a piece to be shown off, not eaten, within a ceramic Christmas Village collection.
12. Classic Gumdrop Gingerbread House with Cotton Ball Smoke
This wonderfully whimsical classic gumdrop gingerbread house with cotton ball smoke coming from the chimney is quite intricate with its use of awnings and colorful details. The gumdrop details for the roofing is the focal point with its vibrant colors. The purpose of the red gummies for shutters and candy cane sticks for pillars, to the green frosting trees and rock candy and gummies surrounding the house paints the picture of the house being located in a forest.
13. Modern Pecan Gingerbread House with Rosemary Tree Wreath Decoration
It’s great to mix up the traditional decorations if you have an individual who doesn’t particularly like candy or too many sweets. This modern pecan gingerbread house is the perfect inspiration for that individual, and the rosemary wreath adds a nice touch as it would also smell amazing once finished. The popcorn is used as fluffy snow, the pecans as windows, the sesame seeds and dried cranberries used to outline the house, and banana chips to create the dimensions of the roofing.
14. Mini Gingerbread House with Peppermint Accent Windows
This gingerbread house is smaller than the average gingerbread kit. Clever use of green frosting, paired with white frosting form the base of the roof pattern. The green icing also serves as the door frame as well as the window trimming, giving the house beautiful holiday greenery. Peppermint candies add more color to the front of the house, with the windows made entirely of purple and pink lollipops. This house makes an excellent addition to your living room, allowing people to appreciate the detailed craftsmanship that went into it.
15. Gold and Foil Hershey Kiss Gingerbread House Decor
The foil from the Hershey Kisses brings out the gold and silver charm of a gingerbread house like this. For those with a limited amount of candy on hand, this gingerbread house shows you that you can build. A wonderfully detailed and unique looking gingerbread house with just clever uses of one candy and some frosting. The kisses provide the window accents, the shingles and the lawn decorations, all without a last-minute trip to the store. Plus, this house is lovely for all those that like a little touch of gold as well.
16.Smarty Candy Roof Decoration with Green Frosting Wreath
A house that breathes winter with its fun use of layering smarties to form a brilliantly multi-colored roof. An inspired use of frosting creates some very wintery icicles along with a beautiful decorative wreath. To round things out are some tasty looking gummy bushes along with lovely use of candied hearts to show the love and care to create this gingerbread house.
17. Blue Frosting Floral Themes Gingerbread House
A fantastic and whimsical design that shows off your artistic talents. A beautiful floral design is weaved throughout this house, ending with an even larger design and showing everyone what you really can accomplish with some just some inspiration and frosting. Blue frosting forms a lovely trim that provides just the right amount of contrast to showcase the floral pattern. From the small detail on the window frames, to the entire garden of blue and white flowers, you can quickly tell the amount of detail and care that was paid to this house.
18. Professionally Designed Gingerbread House With Detailed Frosting Decor
From candy cane pillars to pretzel railings, chocolate nonpareils shingles, you can easily see the planned construction of this gingerbread house, and it’s inspired design. With perfectly symmetrical frosting gilding on the front and windows to the frosting on the chimney, you can easily see the simulation of melted snow. With the amount of intricate detail paid to every inch of this house, all the candies blend seamlessly to help form the look of an ordinary house and one that would be a shame to be eaten.
19. Two Story Large Gingerbread House with Porch
A house that perfectly emulates a New England home in winter. This large mold uses chocolate bars to form the shingles of the roof with blue frosting emulating that shiny ‘blue paint’ finish. The wrinkles and air also help to reinforce this look, giving it the look of freshly painted wood. The porch is also a nice feature, made with chocolate bars as the walkways with candy cane supporting beams; it adds more the winter feel that much more.
20. Classic Gingerbread House with Snowman Decor
Another classic gingerbread design, but this time, complete with smiling snowman and a gingerbread Santa Clause to go with it! We see the regular gumdrop shingles with small Sixlet accents that bring out the color that the plain frosting and gingerbread lack. The windows and doors are constructed from peppermint candies and gumdrops and just a touch of frosting, really giving it a rustic feel.
21. Holiday Joy Gingerbread House
The pink Mike & Ikes give this house a Candyland feel with its vibrant colors and clever uses of red Sixlets for the juniper berries. Although it is subtle, the pink in this house stands out when contrasted to the rest of the house. With the frosting mistletoes, peppermint, and gummy trees, you can feel the joy radiating from this house.
22. Hershey Kiss Roof Decorations
For the chocolate lover in all of us, this house delivers. But ignoring the Hershey kisses and bars that form the roof for just a moment, we have a nice rainbow of jawbreakers that form a beautiful lawn pattern in combination with some candied hearts and some wonderfully patterned snowflakes. Mixed in with traditional designs like gumdrops and frosting trees, there is also beautifully symmetrical gilding of an almost professional caliber, which bathes the house with a lovely floral pattern reminiscent of Santa’s own home.
23. Festive Light Green Gingerbread House
For those that like the color green, this house provides you some wonderful choices, from your traditional peppermints to your less common Sixlets. On the roof we have jawbreakers that form the top, then your standard gummies and even some sour belts to create a more cohesive tile effect. The frosting and the belts help to simulate a subtle ‘house lights’ effect that one might see on Christmas night.
24. Traditional Gingerbread House With Simple Decor
Another traditional gingerbread house with some simplistic gilding designs. With more simplistic frosting designs and a broad array of candy, this house is every kid’s dream to eat. The roof is made with a combination of gummies and harder candies, with the roof being mostly made from frosting with some candies thrown into the mix. More gummies provide a colorful walkway with a decorative wreath of more floral candies. A simple house for those without a decent amount of frosting on hand that kids will still love.
25. Gingerbread Store with Candy Tape Roof and Lights
A store where you might even run into Santa himself. The roof is made from sour red belts, which give a beautiful look of red shingles, with a line of sixlets giving a playful vibe of powered Christmas lights. The spider is optional. Pirouette wafers provide the supporting beams while the door is made from butter cookies. The gummy snake, however, is not optional.
26. Classic Gingerbread Design with Frosting and Gingerbread Man
The classic gingerbread house complete with your very own gingerbread man. The M&M’s provide a chocolaty and very vibrant roof design, while the rest of the house has your more traditional trimmings. We have a wonderfully decorative frosting trim that looks precisely like melting snow, with multi-colored hard candies providing a rainbow look to your lawn and roof decorations. We even have more M&M’s as the wreath, making this house simple yet very delicious. No wonder the gingerbread man is so happy.
27. Mini Graham Cracker House Design with Green and Red Candy
Sometimes you don’t even have gingerbread on hand, or perhaps someone is allergic. No to worry, as this house shows you that a little ingenuity can make even a simple house look great. First, we have a candy cane archway to serve as the door, with red peppermints, green Resess, and Hershey kisses to form a cute little tree. We have graham crackers and a little bit of frosting to keep it all together and to finish it off, decorate it with smatterings of red and green candy.
28. Simple and Elegant Gingerbread House Design with M&Ms
This elegant gingerbread house brings a sense of warmth with its candy cane heart designs. With candy cane frames and peppermint decorations, the Christmas feel is very apparent. The plethora of M&M colors serves as a beautiful roof design with its multi-tiered look, supporting the candy cane roof. With a door made of chocolate, this house makes for one tasty treat.
29. Gingerbread Cottage with Wheat Cereal Roof and Pretzel Antlers
A picturesque image of a forest cottage and excellent use of extra cereal you have lying around. Chex makes up much of the roof with little sugar crystals thrown in for more of a snow effect, though any square-shaped cereal will work just as well. The pretzel antlers give this house a hunter’s lodge vibe with many of the logs constructed from cinnamon sticks, which provide an aroma that is very Christmas-like. Again, frosting is used to emulate the look of melted snow with gingerbread making up the smoky chimney.
30. Pretzel Cottage with Snow Frosting and Candy Lights
When you have an abundance of pretzels lying around, or you want to create a house with a more rustic feel, there is the log cabin. The design is quite similar to the regular gingerbread, except instead of gingerbread, you will be using pretzel sticks to emulate the logs. The sprinkles add a nice dash of color along with simulating the glow of Christmas lights where the frosting is spread very subtly around the sides and front of the house for snow. Finish off with a few decorative flourishes like the wreath and a few gumdrops on the roof.
31. Gummy Wreath With Multiple Color Candy Roof
For fans of hard candies, this house has it all-jawbreakers, peppermints, sour suckers, and skittles. Following a strict color scheme of only green and red, this house blends the more traditional design and simply builds on it, adding more layers of candy between each layer of frosting, giving it a very symmetrical look that is both Christmas like and delicious as well. The centerpiece of this house is the gummy wreath, that matches very well with the rest of the green and red color scheme. And if this house isn’t proving enough, the smiling Santa in the doorway seems to like it.
32. Simple Pink and Clean Frosting Pattern Design
Not everything needs eight different kinds of candy, three colors of frosting and chocolate bars-sometimes just the simplest things are the best. This is a more traditional gingerbread house with frosting trim all around, a candy cane heart at its center and candy cane ledges. The roof and accents are frostings, painted with little hearts to show someone your love and care, which for any gingerbread house, be they eight ingredients or three ingredients, is an essential ingredient of all.
33. Peppermint Roof and Camel Chimney with white Frosting Smoke
A little gingerbread house is allowing you to escape into the joys of Christmas time. Full of individual charm, the caramels provide a nice chimney stack, full of frosting smoke. The peppermint roof allows you to show off your Christmas spirit, with its brilliant greens and reds, contrasting well with your frosting wreath and trees. The multi-colored walkway enables you to show off your tootsie roll log pile and adorable little tootsie roll mailbox.
34. Gingerbread House with Very little Frosting Design
The frosting is great, but sometimes it can be much, both for taste and health reasons. This house trims down on its frosting use, using it very sparingly for some light accents along the front of the house and the shingles for the roof. The rest of the house is adorned with a tasty variety of candies, from the apple ring as the wreath, candy cane arches, to blue lollipops with smaller candies to form a makeshift flower. Then we have green jelly beans, arranged playfully for the roof, shadowing some peppermint shingles before we arrive at the broken kit-kits for some innovative windows.
35. Gingerbread House with Red Candy Accents
This gingerbread design is probably the more traditional-being just gingerbread and red-colored candies. With minimal use of frosting, more emphasis is placed on the sweets providing more of visual flair to the rest of the house. The sour tape is arranged creatively to form the bushes, with a good smattering of red Sixlets providing a brighter roof design. Candy canes form the framing with larger ones acting as door arches. The entire house is finished with a peppermint wreath and gumdrops.
36. Classic House with Great Window Decor
Another traditional gingerbread style, with a wide, vibrant array of gumdrops, gummies, and Sixlets filling every color of the rainbow. The windows of this house is a bit more intricate than the others, with more layering and details implemented so you can see the colors behind it-a mixture of red, yellow, orange and green. With such detail paid to the windows, it almost feels like a real home. We see the same generous smattering of frosting to form the roof with large gumdrops as shingles.
37. Light and Dark Gingerbread Accents with Wheat Roof
A larger design, and for those that prefer chocolate candies over the more fruity gummies. Different round chocolate candies, like milk duds and Whoppers, form the lawn and walkway decorations, while the majority of the house is made of gingerbread with a generous smattering of frosting. With wheat shortbread cookies creating the intricate straw-like roof, to the chocolate wreath and shingles, it’s easy to see why the gingerbread snowman is so happy.
38. Bright Blue Gingerbread House Decorations
A color explosion was showing that a traditional gingerbread house doesn’t have to be, well, classic. From the numerous blue decorations ranging from fish, flowers, small coins and even to rainbow-colored lollipops, it’s important to remember that a gingerbread house is what you want it to look like. This house uses plenty of unconventional designs like orange fishes on the door along with purple and pink roses for the roof design, but it’s still bright and colorful nonetheless.
39. The Small Multi Color Gingerbread House
This small, gingerbread house that has quite a lot of character. Clever use of the gummies for the door walkway as well as arches above the door. The windows are gummies as well with frosting trim. Multi-colored candies line the roof, creating a rainbow pattern that is visually very pretty, pairing well with the icing layer of ‘fake’ snow that the frosting creates. More gummies adorn the roof, creating the shingles with giant gummies adding more focus on the diamond-shaped centerpiece of the house, making this one both aesthetically symmetrical and tasty as well.
40. Gingerbread House with Fake Snow
41. Gingerbread House with Fence and Lights
42. Handmade Gingerbread House with Gingerbread Tree
43. Gingerbread House with Chocolate and Frosting
45. Gingerbread House with Advanced Frosting Design
46. Mini Gingerbread House Design
Additional Gingerbread House Resources:
- Best Gingerbread House Kits
- Gingerbread House Tips
- How to Store Gingerbread
- How to Make a Gingerbread House
- Gingerbread House Candy