News and Events

Calling all gingerbread housemakers! Our 19th annual Gingerbread Festival is on for 2021! We had so much wonderful feedback from the community following our reimagined festival last year, we’ve decided to repeat the new design – a community display of gingerbread houses and an online auction of those houses to raise funds to support the programs of The Family Place.

The gingerbread houses created and donated by members of our community are the heart of the festival. We hope you will make a house and help us put gingerbread houses throughout our community! Houses will be displayed at businesses and organizations in the Upper Valley towns of Norwich, VT; White River Junction, VT; Hanover, NH; and Lebanon and West Lebanon, NH. We will provide maps with the locations of the wonderful houses. The houses will be on display in our community beginning Saturday, November 20, through Wednesday, December 8, 2021. We hope you will consider contributing to the fun this year!

Because of the new format, we have different requirements for houses:

• Please complete the house submission form by November 12, 2021. For the form, it is fine if you don’t have a name or concept yet – we just want to know that you are participating, and we will follow up for more information. The online form can be completed here: Gingerbread Festival 2021 House Submission Form. Please let us know if you need the form emailed or mailed. Click here to download a PDF version of the house submission form.
• House delivery and drop-off will be either Thursday, 11/18, or Friday, 11/19. All housemakers will be assigned a drop-off day, time and location.
• Please make sure your creation is sturdy and neat – we won’t be there with royal icing to do repairs. In a public setting, it’s more likely that it could be touched.
• Since the gingerbread houses will be on display until December 8, your creations will also need to be long-lasting (as well as delicious-looking).
• Please photograph your finished house before delivery and email photos to: gingerbread@the-family-place.org. Please let us know if you will need your house photographed, and we photograph your house at the drop-off location.

Our community has been so generous and supportive of our festival, and we would love your help in making this year’s festival just as successful as previous years!

If you have any questions, please contact us at gingerbread@the-family-place.org.

Thank you to everyone – Gingerbread house makers, volunteers, community members, sponsors, dedicated staff and board members, local businesses and organizations – who make this special event possible!

We are so thankful for our generous event sponsors!

Leadership Sponsor: Gingerbread House Display – White Mountains Insurance Group; Leadership Sponsor – Mascoma Bank; Signature Sponsor – King Arthur Baking Company; Supporting Sponsors – All-Access Infotech, AllServe Self-Storage of Wilder, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Verani Realty, Dead River Company, Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, and LockNLube; and our Friends of the Festival – Dan & Whit’s General Store, Granite Value Capital, Miller & Candon, LLC, and Otto & Associates, Inc. We are grateful for the support of our Media Sponsor, the Valley News!