The 2016-2017 Winter Holiday Gingerbread House

The original plan was to have it finished by Christmas. Turns out it was a much bigger endeavor than anticipated, and I finally finished it on January 2nd.

The construction process:

 I got half a dozen little battery operated tea lights to put inside the house. They've now been in there for about a week and aren't flickering much, but I'm impressed they lasted as long as they did.

This was the first plan for the back of the house. It didn't survive "contact with the enemy". 

 So I redesigned things and built it in five pieces

 The windows are made of clear hard candy. I put small pieces in the window holes and it melts together in a 350F degree oven. 

 Construction complete...

 See the little lights in the windows? 

Now to the decorations

Chimney details

 Front door and rainbow path to the door (that was Twitch's idea)

 The shrubbery is rice krispies with green food color and little red hot candies. The red hot candy also appears as a door knob. 

The back of the house

Details from the back

 This is a Cheeto snowman, in mockery of our president-elect.

 And there you have it. Happy New Year!