Ultimate Gingerbread House Madness, at Caroline Collective Tomorrow

Gotta hand it to those Caroline Collective folk — they always come up with quirky, unique, fun stuff to do. This time out, they’re staging what will (hopefully) be their First Annual Gingerbread Build-Off, just in time for the holiday insanity.

You’ve probably already guessed the idea: teams of up to three (in categories for kids, adults, and real-live architecture or design pros) compete to build the most badass, clever, cool buildings/castles/whatever out of gingerbread. The structures get judged by a panel of experts on food, design, and architecture, and the winners will be displayed at the Architecture Center Houston downtown. Wow. I hear there’re trophies, as well, but can’t totally confirm that.

The event’s tomorrow — Saturday, December 19th — and will run from 10AM to 2PM, which, as somebody who’s done the generic Target-bought house kit a few times, really isn’t all that much time in which to craft your ginger-scented Taj Mahal. Word to the wise: overreaching and running out of time means you don’t get any of it done. Just sayin’.

It’s $25 per team to enter, and that gets you all the basic building materials — although you can bring your own extra stuff, so long as it’s edible (that’s right; none of that Ace of Cakes/Cake Boss fakery going on here, y’all, and I appreciate that). And, of course, there will most likely be some building materials that, um, “accidentally” get eaten.

Even if you don’t want to build, this still sounds like it’d be pretty awesome to see; the Collective Website doesn’t specifically say people can come by & be spectators, but I can’t imagine they’re going to turn people away…