Annual gingerbread house competition sparks creativity

By Shreya Challa     12/3/24 11:09pm

Rice Program Council held their annual gingerbread house building competition Nov. 20. This year, the theme was ‘Lights, Camera, Gingerbread!’ with teams recreating scenes from iconic films, from Rapunzel’s tower to the Pirates of the Caribbean ship.

According to Carmine Steiner, co-chair of the Night Owls Antics committee organizing the event, the competition has been in the works since October. 

“We start by going over what our vision is, so we deal with our theme first, and then after that we build everything around it,” Steiner, a McMurtry College sophomore, said. “Everything is black and red, and there are gold stars … We decided on this [theme] because we thought [the contestants] would have the most fun.”

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Madeline Ansley, who competed in the competition as part of the team ‘The Hispanics,’ said that she feels the competition is well-organized every year.

“I’ve seen [the competition] every year, and I’ve always wanted to do it … I think it’s a really great way to start off holiday festivities,” Ansley, a Hanszen College junior, said. “I really like these types of events at Rice, they’re purely fun.”

Ansley’s team built a grandfather clock from “A Christmas Carol” and attributed their final product and teamwork to the diversity of majors and interests in their group, which included engineers, designers and an art history major.

Andy Corliss was a member of the ‘Red Building Baddies’ team, which built gingerbread robots WALL-E and EVE from the movie WALL-E, complete with the cubes of trash that WALL-E collects in the movie. Corliss said he competed in the competition last year, as well.

“In the past, I’ve definitely been more stressed about [the competition], but this year I was just like, ‘It’s fine.’ I think it’s better not to be too competitive because there’s always going to be some crazy people who pull off something amazing,” Corliss, a Hanszen College junior, said. “The fun part is just to go around and look at everyone else’s [gingerbread houses] afterward.”

Caitlyn Ladd was part of a team that recreated an action shot of the Titanic sinking. The team used inspiration photos from Pinterest and ultimately decided on the Titanic from a host of other ideas. One of their teammates ate away at the gingerbread pieces to trim them as part of the building process.

“We thought [the idea] was creative because it wasn’t a house like most people were doing,” Ladd, a Wiess College sophomore, said. “There was a lot we could do with it.”

Kat Han, co-chair of the NOA committee, said that though she wasn’t at last year’s gingerbread house competition, it went well and the committee tried to keep a similar concept and flow throughout the event.

“We’re … building on that momentum. Our committee does [the competition] every year,” Han, a Hanszen College sophomore, said. “It just gets a little bit bigger every year … but I think the heart of it is the same.”

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