Get the gum drops, candy canes and powdered sugar ready. Add in some imagination.
Registration opened Monday for the 19th annual City of Pittsburgh’s Gingerbread Competition.
The city’s office of special events invites people to create structures from a standard gingerbread house to pretty much any building they can imagine.
Because of covid-19 safety precautions, entering the competition will remain in a virtual format this year, said Melissa Culbertson, the city’s special events program coordinator.
The deadline to enter two photos of a finished design is Nov. 13 and can be done here.
Winners will be contacted and invited to bring their gingerbread houses to be displayed behind glass windows on the portico of the City-County Building, Downtown.
They will be unveiled on Light Up Night on Nov. 20 and housed there through the first week of January. An online gallery of all the entries will also be available.
“It will be great for people to come in person and see the gingerbread houses for a little bit of normalcy,” Culbertson said. “When we were in the planning stages, we didn’t know how things were going to go (with covid-19 cases), so we thought this would be the way to keep everyone safe.”
Registration for our Gingerbread House Competition is open!
The City of Pittsburgh invites you to participate in this annual competition that has dazzled visitors for the past 18 years at both PPG Place and the historic City-County Building
More info:https://t.co/5RWJwiyyKL pic.twitter.com/rsUg9fI50w
— Pittsburgh Special Events (@PghEventsOffice) November 1, 2021
“The city is proud to serve as the presenter of this popular holiday tradition that attracts hundreds of entries each year,” said special events manager Brian Katze in a statement.
There were close to 350 entries last year and close to 2,000 votes for the People’s Choice Award. The winner can be selected from any of the entries, not just the winners, Culbertson said.
Last year’s People’s Choice winner Eva Mountain, 12, from Franklin Park, a seventh grader at Marshall Middle School, has created an inspiration board for this year’s contest. She plans to create the house from scratch and work on it Tuesday because there is no school for Election Day.
“I have some ideas,” said Mountain, whose entry last year was titled “Christmas on the Mountain.” “I have more experience which I think will help this year.”
Culbertson said she enjoys seeing all of the images of what people create, using items they already have in the kitchen from graham crackers to pretzel rods to marshmallows to leftover Halloween candy.
Small to medium single-structure houses are recommended and should be under 2 feet in height. An infrastructure for support is always suggested, such as Styrofoam, cardboard or foam core. No battery or electric components. Egg- or butter-based icing should not be used. No components should require refrigeration.
The categories are individuals, families, organizations, students and chefs.
The Gingerbread House Competition and Display launched in 2002 when Downtown hotels held a competition to benefit the Children’s Hospital Free Care Fund. They were first displayed at PPG Place before moving to the City-County Building’s lobby in 2019.
