Seattle's Gingerbread Village Keeps Holidays Alive

Hey Diddle Diddle: Weber Thompson, David Mestl (Ariel Rosenstock)

In case you still can’t let go of the holidays (we know, it’s not easy), take a look back at Seattle’s 21st annual gingerbread festival, which just closed at the city’s downtown Sheraton Hotel. Six local architecture firms partnered with the hotel’s culinary team to produce a dizzying array of giant candy-fied creations to benefit the the Northwest chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The theme this year was nursery rhymes, officially dubbed, “There’s a Rhyme and a Reason this Holiday Season”. (In case you missed it, last year’s theme was fairy tales.)

Among the highlights: a cow jumps over a moon above a whimsical winter village built from sweets and icing in “Hey Diddle Diddle” by firm Weber Thompson; an almost four-foot tall ship of gingerbread with marshmallow-like sails filled with marzipan sailors, white mice and a duck captain depict the plot from the rhyme “I Saw a Ship A-Sailing” by 4D Architects, Inc; and Jack and the beanstalk hover over the lower Queen Anne Seattle neighborhood–Space Needle and all (by Callison).