The best gingerbread house kits you can buy

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• People have been constructing gingerbread houses for hundreds of years.

• Make this classic holiday decoration an enjoyable part of your family’s tradition by using a great kit like our top pick, the Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit.

• It comes with everything you need to build a festive little candy cottage that will look and taste great.

The history of gingerbread stretches back thousands of years, with verifiable accounts of ginger-flavored cakes dating back to Ancient Rome. Ginger made its way to the western world as crusaders returned from their campaigns to the Middle East in the late 11th Century and throughout the 12th and early 13th Centuries. The sweet, spicy root added flavor and preservative qualities to foods and was soon a prized staple used in myriad foodstuffs.

Gingerbread houses, too, have a long history. Bakers were making stylized edible houses not unlike those known in the modern era as far back as the early 1800s. Figurines made from gingerbread arrived as much as 500 years before that. Medieval bakers mastered various types of gingerbread shaping, and even in centuries past, this tasty bread was often associated with the Christmas holiday.

In my family, the making of gingerbread houses has a relatively long history, too, though one often fraught with woe. For every great-looking gingerbread house made in my home, there have been two that ended up collapsed and consumed before ever taking shape. See, while my wife tends to take her time carefully constructing a solid base house and allowing the icing to dry and such before she starts decorating, I traditionally rushed through the construction part, eager to get to the decorations. This usually results in a house that is structurally unsound and prone to catastrophic failure.

Our young son has also yet to master the patient art of proper gingerbread house architecture, and his also often break apart. But that's really not the worst thing ever, as a fallen gingerbread house is nothing more than candy and cookies.

If you and your family (or you and your friends or coworkers or your cats) want to make a great gingerbread house this holiday season, I can't help you be a meticulous, cautious builder, but I can recommend a few great gingerbread kits that will at least give you the materials and some of the tools needed to create a charming candy cottage. What you do with the stuff is up to you. And for the record, eating it is a fine option, especially after the roof caves in for the second time.

Here are the best gingerbread house kits you can buy:

• Best overall: Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit
• Best affordable kit: Candyland Gingerbread House Kit
• Best kit for kids: Wilton Gingerbread Cookie Kit
• Best DIY kit: Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit
• Best Hanukkah kit: Chanukah House Cookie Kit

Updated on 11/27/2018 by Steven John: Added three new kits and updated prices and formatting.

Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks.

The best gingerbread house kit overall

Why you'll love it: The Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit is a compact classic that's easy to make, looks lovely, and tastes great, too.

The larger the gingerbread house, the harder it is to make. And that's not because larger gingerbread houses require more decorations than their smaller counterparts, but rather because larger sheets of gingerbread tend to crack quite easily. If you and the kids want to build an edible holiday decoration that won't break apart during the construction phase, then smaller is always better.

And while the finished house you'll get from the Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit lives up to the adjective in its name, it's such a lovely little structure that you won't mind the diminutive size a bit. Besides, at 5.25 inches wide, 5.75 inches deep, and 4.5 inches tall, this tasty holiday house is the perfect size to serve as a centerpiece on the dining room table, to perch on a deep windowsill, or to rest on a countertop or shelf, adding charm and cheer and without taking up too much room.

The kit comes with colorful gumballs, gumdrops, hard candies, colored fondant, icing, and more, including, of course, panels of sweet and spicy gingerbread. Building the house shouldn't take more than a half hour and kids and adults alike can have a hand in the process.

The Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit scores a four out of five-star average rating on Amazon. One customer named Dana called it a sturdy "fun family Christmas project," while a customer named Joyce admitted that she and her family "had a blast building it" and then they "ate it."

A video reviewer with Disney Toy Wishes demonstrated the ease of building a Wilton gingerbread house using just the materials included in her kit, and the result was indeed lovely.

Pros: Easy to build, solid and sturdy design, great selection of decorations

Cons: Smaller than most other options

Buy the Wilton Petite Gingerbread House Kit on Jet for $26.76

The best low-cost gingerbread house kit

Why you'll love it: The Candyland Gingerbread House Kit comes with everything you need to make a lovely and delicious little cookie house.

You remember the beloved game Candyland from your childhood, right? Well, now you can relive the joys of moving a little game piece up that sweet, colorful road by building a Candyland-themed gingerbread house and then eating it!

OK, to be honest, nothing about this gingerbread house kit has anything to do with Candyland other than the fact that it's marketed as such and that you can cut a few characters out of the box itself to use as "scene setters."

But here's the thing: You're not buying this gingerbread house kit out of nostalgia for childhood game night, you're buying it because it costs less than fifteen bucks and comes with everything you need to create a lovely little holiday decoration that you can also, should you choose, consume.

In the kit, you'll find four walls, a roof, a chimney, an icing packet, and four kinds of candy. And of you choose to cut out the Candy King, Candy Fairy, and the two kids on the back of the box, you can add them to the festive tableau, too. Just don't eat them - they're made of cardboard.

A lady named Elizabeth who built a gingerbread house using the Candyland Gingerbread House Kit called the kit "perfect, cute, and cheap," though she did add that "there's nothing really Candyland about it."

But hey, $14.99, right? And you're going to eat it eventually, anyway. Or throw it out, so you'll get over the lack of classic game resemblance.

Pros: Low cost, multiple candies included, easy construction

Cons: Bares little relation to stated theme

Buy the Candyland Gingerbread House Kit at Bed Bath & Beyond for $14.99

The best gingerbread kit for kids

Why you'll love it: Building a gingerbread house is the hard part, and decorating it is the fun part, so skip the house and instead decorate cookies with the Wilton Gingerbread Cookie Kit.

Let's be honest, while decorating gingerbread houses is lots of fun, building the base gingerbread house can be time-consuming, painstaking, and overall frustrating. And if you think sticking together those walls and the roof with icing well enough that the structure actually stands is tricky as an adult, just imagine a kid trying to do it!

So skip the house building but don't skip the holiday gingerbread decoration by using the Wilton Gingerbread Cookie Kit. It comes with eight pre-baked and ready to decorate (and/or eat...) gingerbread cookies in classic "gingerbread man" shape and includes green and white ready-to-use icing, red fondant, and multiple kinds of candies in classic Christmas colors. Kids can be as detailed or as basic as they'd like with the decorating, and there's no worry about a roof cave in or wall collapse.

Oh, and by the way, Wilton also throws in an extra bag of multicolored jawbreaker candies, so use those on the cookies or just eat 'em.

An Amazon reviewer named Barbara raved about the Wilton Gingerbread Cookies Kit, calling it a "great item and price" and saying they were "easy to do," as well. However another shopper reported that many of the cookies in three kits she ordered arrived broken, so order with enough time to request replacements and/or be ready to do some surgical repair work using medical grade icing.

Pros: Very easy project, comes with multiple icing colors, extra candy bag included

Cons: Rather expensive, some cookies may arrive damaged

Buy the Wilton Gingerbread Cookie Kit on Amazon for $25.46

The best DIY gingerbread house kit

Why you'll love it: With this one set of molds, you could make a thousand gingerbread houses or more; the Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit is all you need. Well, that and some gingerbread batter, candy, icing, and time.

OK, yes, in order to use the Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit to make your own gingerbread house, first you're going to need to master your gingerbread baking techniques. But don't worry: Before recommending this kit, I researched the process by reading through a host of different recipes, and it turns out it's not that hard to make gingerbread batter. Smoothing it into the molds perfectly every time might take a bit of practice, though.

Once you have the batter making and baking down pat, you can use the Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit again and again, making the best gingerbread houses of your life.

Not only does the kit come with molds for the standard six panels of a gingerbread house (two pieces of the roof, front, back, and sides, e.g.) but it also has a door, pine trees, a snowman, a reindeer and sleigh, and other baked decorations. When you use all the included shapes and add your own favorite candies and colored icing, your DIY gingerbread house won't rival store-bought options, it will far surpass them.

And in the long run, it's a lot cheaper to build gingerbread houses from scratch than to go with store-bought kits, too.

The Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit has a solid 4.4-star average rating on Amazon. One customer loves how the silicone molds "really hold the details and make the pieces easy to pop out," while others love how they could also be used for making shaped chocolate and gelatin treats.

A Mokey International write-up about the Juvale gingerbread mold kit notes that the durable silicone molds are safe for use in the "freezer, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, and oven."

Pros: Makes detailed and lovely gingerbread panels, saves money over time, features unique accessory shapes

Cons: Requires separate purchase of all materials

Buy the Juvale Gingerbread House Silicone Mold Kit on Amazon for $17

The best Hanukkah gingerbread kit

Why you'll love it: The Chanukah House Cookie Decorating Kit makes holiday DIY decorating a multi-faith experience.

OK, let's get this out of the way at the start: The Chanukah House Cookie Decorating Kit is not technically a gingerbread house kit at all. The walls and roof of this little cottage are made from vanilla cookie dough, not gingerbread. But will it still make a charming and edible house that looks and tastes great? Yes, so I'm not going to get too hung up on it.

And besides, beyond the icing, sprinkles, candy beads, and decorative sugar you'd expect from any such kit, the Chanukah House Cookie Decorating Kit also comes with multiple dreidels, a dreidel spinner, and chocolate Hanukkah coins.

What's perhaps most notable about this kit, though, beyond the fact that it's not Christmas themed, is the fact that it comes with a large cookie base and sides with cut out slots and slats designed to fit together.

Once built and with icing dried, this holiday house will be sturdier than any other gingerbread house on the block, and easier to move around as needed, too.

When those eight days of celebration have ended, it will taste great, too. And yes, of course, it's kosher. Which you have the right to expect considering this unique holiday house kit costs almost forty bucks.

Pros: Unique take on holiday house, comes with dreidels, sturdy design

Cons: Expensive, not technically gingerbread

Buy the Chanukah House Cookie Decorating Kit on Amazon for $34.95

Check out our other great Christmas decorating guides

The best Christmas decorations you can buy

A beautifully decorated home is part of the wonder of the holiday season. We've rounded up the best decorating essentials for your home to make it easier for you.

That's why we've gathered up the top suggestions for a wide range of Christmas décor. Whether you go all-out decorating for the holidays, or just stick with a tree covered with a few glass balls, we've got the best of the best for your holiday home.

Here are the best Christmas decorations you can buy:

• Best faux tree: National Tree Company's Douglas Fir
• Best tree stand: Krinner Tree Genie Christmas Tree Stand
• Best ornaments: Shop all ornaments at Target
• Best tree topper: Christmas Snowman Tree Hugger
• Best tree skirt: Valery Madelyn Traditional Holly Leaves Tree Skirt
• Best string lights: GE Energy Smart Colorite LED Mini Light Set
• Best wreath for your front door: Woodland Eucalyptus Wreath
• Best holiday inflatable: Inflatable Snow Family
• Best stockings: Needlepoint Stockings from L.L. Bean
• Best garland: Home Accents Holiday Pre-Lit Plaza Garland
• Best advent calendar: Byer's Choice Christmas Tree Advent Calendar
• Best quirky decoration: Christmas Incandescent Tinsel Llama