By Dawn Burleigh

Master Bakers pull out your pastry bag or piping bag and start decorating.

Orange First Church of the Nazarene is hosting a Gingerbread House Decorating Contest on Saturday, December 7 with two categories: Kids (17 and under) or Adult (18 and over).

Each category will be awarding a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
Prizes will be gift cards to Cinemark Tinseltown Movie Theatre for a Holiday Family Day with 1st-$100, 2nd-$50, 3rd-$25. Sign up by December 6 to reserve a spot.

The Gingerbread House need to be at Orange First Church of the Nazarene, located at 3810 Martin Luther King Jr Drive in Orange, by 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 7 for the judging.

To sign up for our Ginger Bread House decorating contest: https://tinyurl.com/orangenazdecoratingcontest

In addition to the contest, there will be real snow.
Christmas crafts, Holiday treats, hot cocoa and apple cider and Christmas Carols. Santa will even make a special guest appearance for pictures with the children.

Did I mention snow? Real snow.

Pastor Brad McKenzie has not revealed how the church will have real snow but did state as long as the rain stayed away, there would be snow outside.

While the event is a family friendly way to start off the Advent season, it also heads up Gingerbread House Day.

Gingerbread House Day is observed annually on December 12.

A favorite food of an Armenian monk, Gregory of Nicopolis, brought gingerbread to Europe around 992 AD and taught French Christians to bake it. Gingerbread was often used in religious ceremonies and was baked to be sturdy as it was often molded into images of saints.

We can thank the Brothers’ Grimm for the idea of a gingerbread house through their tale of Hansel and Gretel. It didn’t take long for the German gingerbread guilds to pick up the idea and put it to a more festive use making snowy cottages made from the spicy-sweet treat, according to nationaldaycalendar.com