5th Annual Gingerbread House Tea Party {To-Go!}
Each year, my family kicks off the magic of the Christmas season with a Gingerbread House Tea Party for my daughter Blakely and her friends. My own mother hosted a similar Gingerbread House Tea Party for me when I was younger, and I love continuing this special holiday tradition.
Read on to see how we “hosted” the tea party, 2020-style!
As you can see above, the day is filled with sweet gumdrops, sparkling twinkle lights and fluffy icing galore! This year, however, looked a little bit different…
While we can’t gather together this year,
a sugar plum fairy is still spreading good cheer! 🎀✨
So do a little twirl and untie the pink bow…
Inside you’ll find a Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go!🎄🍭🍬✨
A glance at our past Gingerbread House Tea Parties…
- 4th Annual Gingerbread House Tea Party
- 3rd Annual Gingerbread House Tea Party
- 2nd Annual Gingerbread House Tea Party
- How to Make Gingerbread Houses (+ VIDEO)
This year was our 5th annual Gingerbread House Tea Party! Given the times, our tea party looked a little bit different. We weren’t about to let 2020 take away our Christmas magic!
We created Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go kits for each little girl and hand-delivered them to their front door.
I’m excited to share how we created our Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go. I hope this post inspires you to still find ways to keep the magic of the season alive this year.
Since all the little girls have been enjoying this party since they were just 2 years old, we couldn’t let the year go by without gingerbread houses! So we created a “to-go” party kit with everything they needed to recreate the sweet tradition safely at home and delivered them around to their front porches.
Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go Boxes
We used some leftover shipping boxes (with lids cut off) as our base. The size of our boxes was 12.5″ by 12.5″, but you can use any similar size box (all of those Amazon boxes can be reused, hooray)! For reference, these are very close to the boxes we used.
Each box was wrapped in light pink wrapping paper. You could use any wrapping paper you want to match your color scheme.
We filled the boxes with everything the girls’ needed (see list below) and dropped the boxes in jumbo cellophane gift bags from Michaels. The size is 28″x32″. Your size bag will vary based on the size box you’re using.
Everything is prettier when tied with a bow so a big pink buffalo check bow as a must. I used this pink ribbon from Hobby Lobby. You could use a traditional red or green too, depending on your color scheme!
I love adding a personalized tag to gifts so I ordered pale pink calligraphy gift tags from here on Etsy each girl’s gingerbread house kit. You can find many wonderful calligraphy artists on Etsy. They can often do custom colors so you can match your boxes!
It’s a bit hard to see in the photos but after we tied on the bow and calligraphy name card, we loosely wrapped each to-go kit with a string of fairy lights. THESE are the fairy lights I recommend (they come with extra batteries and a tiny screwdriver too).
The fairy lights were probably my very favorite detail. I love that they looked extra sparkly when the girls’ opened the door!
We also taped the little poem (top of post) to each one!
Now let’s get to the fun party, what we put INSIDE the Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go kits. I received an overwhelming number of requests to see what we put inside our kits.
I’ve made a list below, but know that you can put anything you wish inside your own to-go kits. As long as you have a gingerbread house, icing and candy – that’s all that really matters.
Inside the Gingerbread House Tea Party Kits
If you want to make your own gingerbread house in our signature style, you can find our tutorial for DIY Gingerbread Houses here! It includes a video tutorial and all the details from the perfect royal icing recipe to the piping tube we use to make the ruffled royal icing.
HOW TO MAKE GINGERBREAD HOUSES
If you do not want to make your own, you can purchase pre-made gingerbread houses. I often see the at Target, grocery stores, Costco, etc.
Down in each kit, we included a variety of candies for decorating. We have more details on why we love (or hate) certain candies for gingerbread houses in our DIY post. I’ve added links to the candies where available below.
We bagged the candies in little cellophane bags and tied off with a pale pink bow. You could also fill baking cups with the candies to drop down in bags as well.
Candies for Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go Kit
- Mini marshmallows
- Pink & White striped marshmallows
- Gumdrops
- Mini Starbursts
- Rainbow Candies
- Fruit Slices
- Pink Butter Mints
In addition to candy, we also like to add in little decorative items like Santas or snowmen. You can find these types of characters at any craft store during the holidays.
We also add in mini wreaths and tiny bows. Again, any craft store has this type of decoration, especially if you check the sections for small tree ornaments.
Royal Icing for Gingerbread House Tea Party To-Go Kit
We made a batch of our royal icing for each little girl’s kit. When stored in airtight containers, it can last up to 2 days and stay soft enough to spread onto the houses. We included a couple of piping bags for each girl along with sprinkles and instructions for adding the sprinkles to the roof of the house.
Tea & Cookies
It is a tea party, after-all so tea was a must! We tucked in Orange & Spice tea bags to these “to-go” tea cups tied with a pink gingham bow. We also included a custom gingerbread house sugar cookie made by Summer’s Sweet Shop.
Porch Drop Off
We turned on the Christmas music and delivered the houses to each little girl. After we dropped off each to-go kit at the porch, we texted “SUGAR PLUM FAIRY DELIVERY OUT FRONT”.
We hope it brought smiles to Blakely’s friends to open the door to see a gingerbread house ready for decorating!
We hope we’ve inspired you to make the best of a very peculiar year! While we can’t gather together for our favorite traditional Christmas parties, we can certainly try to keep the magic alive during the season of giving!
I look forward to this post every year and what a great idea for Blakely to still be able to continue this tradition on! Just think how excited her little friends were to see this at their front doors!! Awesome job of course, Courtney!! XXOO!
Thank you so much, Tina!
Courtney, I just adore your Gingerbread House Parties, over the top fun! So… :) your sprinkles look amazing, as well as the cute snowflake bags, any chance you can share the source? Love following you, have a blessed Christmas with your sweet family and congrats on Ivy! Your book is wrapped under my tree to me :) – Pam
Hi Pam! Thank you SO much! The bags were all clear cellophane bags. We did wrap twinkle lights around the outside of the main bag, maybe they look a bit like the bag had snowflakes? Just clear bags! Michaels has tons, they also have seasonal ones (perhaps snowflakes!).
thank you, … I was looking at the little package of sprinkles on top of the tupperware icing containers :) the colors are so pretty!
Hi Pam! Ahh, those! From Walmart in their party section!
:) Thank you, you have a great Walmart!
What a gorgeous idea!Thanks you for sharing and really love your site.
Thank you!
What a fabulous idea. Makes me wish I had a little girl!
I remember seeing your party last year and if I wasn’t convinced then , I am certainly convinced now that , I want to be Blakey’s friend 😆 The look of excitement on her face is so precious, she definitely is so excited to give these to her friends, what a great quality!!
So over the top adorable on every level !!
XO,
Lorraine
Thank you so much, Lorraine! :)
I love your 2020 take on this great tradition!!
I can only imagine the look on the girls’ faces when they opened those doors- priceless!
P.S. I really enjoyed listening to your story on the Preppy Podcast. So interesting.
Thank you so much!
Be still my heart!
What a fabulous and beautiful idea. Just amazing gingerbread house!
What lucky little girls to receive these on their doorstep.
Merry Christmas!
Where do you get your gingerbread houses? Make them yourself or order them prepare? They’re adorable!!
Hi Dani! We make them, and we have a full tutorial for how we do it (with a video and all the recipes) here: https://pizzazzerie.com/diy/diy-holiday/how-to-make-diy-gingerbread-houses/
This has got to be the most adorable event ever🥰. I have a granddaughter who was born last year on December 22, I will be using a lot of your wonderful ideas to celebrate her🥰. Thank you so much for sharing!!
Thank you Robin!!