ARLINGTON — Local Scoop’s Gingerbread Competition is becoming an Arlington holiday festivity.
With 14 entrants, this year’s contest more than doubled last year’s entries.
Prizes for the contest were gathered by the Downtown Arlington Business Association. Local Scoop made flyers and advertised the contest to attract contestants.
The contest included five age categories: 7-and-under, 8-to-12 years old, 13-to-17 years old, Adult, and People’s Choice, voted on by the parlor’s customers.
The main rule, in the spirit of holiday treats, was that everything used to build the houses had to be edible.
The 7-and-under winner was a gingerbread house with pink, yellow and green marshmallow shingles, a marshmallow fence and layered gingerbread Christmas trees with red and green Red Hots and snow icing on their branches.
Willy, 10, and Jesse Hillman, 8, won the 8-to-12 category with their Christmas Village display including four candy-covered houses of various shapes and a plaza made with gumdrop cobblestones and gummy trees.
There was no 13-to-17 champion because no entries fitting the category were submitted.
The Adult and People’s Choice winner was Local Scoop employee Christina Baker and her husband Curtis’ Local Scoop replica, the idea for which Christina is credited.
Curtis made the stencils, Christina made the gingerbread and the couple designed the interior of the restaurant together. They used King Arthur’s icing to hold the walls together when it was time to raise the roof.
The Bakers, who joined the contest because it was a fun holiday activity that the family could do together, received the People’s Choice prize, a gift basket stuffed with $100 of Angel of the Winds Casino gifts.
“I’m getting a kit next time,” said Curtis, a retired project manager, recalling the exhaustive efforts of building the gingerbread ice cream shop. “I’ll take recipes off the internet.”
Another piece of eye candy was a Christmas train bearing gummy Christmas presents and an engine made of M&Ms. One house had a roof made of shredded wheat.
“People love it. They absolutely love it,” Christine said. “We’re going to do this every year now.”
