The Un-Christmassy Origin of Gingerbread Houses
Like most Christmas traditions, gingerbread houses are big business: Wilton, a popular confectionery-making company, reports that it created over two million gingerbread house kits in 2011. For those who are more DIY-inclined, domestic gurus from Martha Stewart on down offer recipes and plans for making your own sugary domicile. But in spite of gingerbread house-decorating’s cozy holiday connotations, the roots of this tradition may lie in the folktale Hansel and Gretel.
