You can buy your house and eat it too

It’s one sweet neighborhood.
Good enough to eat.
Twenty gingerbread houses go on the auction block Sunday to raise money for kids.

The project by First United Methodist Church includes a gingerbread church, ranch, lodge and train. The weeklong silent auction ends Dec. 6.

At Saturday’s setup, church members Noah and Jude Walker admired the two-story house donated by retailer Williams-Sonoma, which sells the two-foot-tall structure for $250.

“That one’s impressive,” said 4-year-old Jude.

“I don’t know how I’d eat that one,” said Noah, 7.

The boys said they’d have no problem eating the candy-festooned gingerbread church with the waffle-cone steeple.

“Some are edible, some aren’t,” project coordinator Carolyn Eckert said. “The really good ones have minimum opening bids.”

Not that they aren’t all good. The eye candy works of art sport details including candy lights and an icing newspaper on the stoop.

Don’t have a place in your home for such an architectural wonder?

No problem, Eckert said. Donate it to a nursery, children’s hospital or a retirement home.

This is the first year for the project, which got out of hand after Eckert made a pitch to her Sunday school class.

“I started out challenging my class to make one gingerbread house,” she said, “and everyone said yes.”

Businesses also said yes. Houses came from The Broadmoor, Garden of the Gods Country Club, Cheyenne Mountain Resort, Creative Cakes, Center for Creative Leadership and Richard Carpenter of Harvest Mountain Food.

Church member Linda Frank said it took her three days to create a gingerbread farm with cinnamon chewing-gum roof and candy corn feed for the cookie barnyard animals.

“The only thing that’s not edible,” she said, “is this duck. The bill came off and I glued it.”

Proceeds go to First Steps to pay for counseling for children and teens, including spiritual support and grief camps.
The houses are on display in the hospitality room at the church at 420 N. Nevada Ave.

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Call the writer at 636-0253.