Gingerbread Houses: Guys Versus Girls

Winterfest was a blast! Maybe by now all of our campers have finally caught up on rest, because they were having so much fun over the weekend! There are several highlights that we could talk about, but let’s be honest: we know everyone just wants to know about the the Ranch Gingerbread Launch.

We’ve known that guys and girls are different for a long time. But this year at the Ranch for Winterfest, the differences became even more clear. It became obvious early on that each gender was going to take a much different approach in construction, even with the exact same construction materials.

The ladies were quite concerned about the decorative approach: which candy was the cutest? Which house shape looks the best? There was a much more conservative and collaborative approach in regard to the amount of graham crackers and decorations used.

Here is a great example of a typical gingerbread house built by girls:

The guys. Well let’s just say the goal was to use every last graham cracker, ounce of frosting, and piece of candy. Overall mass was the most important concern. Decoration? Well, that was less of a consideration. What became more important by the end of the event was smearing frosting and candy on each others’ faces.

Here is a great example of a typical guy gingerbread house:

However, the guys did walk away with some very impressive candy pyramids.

Now, just making these gingerbread houses is not enough. Far too ordinary! So the next day, it was time to launch these gingerbread houses off of our zip tower with a water balloon slingshot. Note to self: wear a jacket if you don’t want candy all over you. If you do not launch correctly the houses will slingshot and crash into your body rather than the ground.

When done correctly, it looks like this:

And it’s awesome.

This is just a small sampling of the amazing time we had at Winterfest at all of our youth camps last weekend. If you missed it, be sure to join us next year! If you were there, see you back soon!

Check out Winterfest photos from all six of our youth camps!