Our marketing department decided that they would like to try their hands at building the Gingerbread houses of their dreams, and the results were quite breathtaking, I must say.

The contest was very competitive, and they had some special rules that allowed for the creativity to flow free. Darrin S, marketing genius, volunteered his garage as a spare parts warehouse, and each gingerbread house had to have a piece of junk used in a creative way. In true Las Vegas fashion, the winning entry was a gingerbread slot-machine, created by Holly and Darrin, with the runner up being a Gingerbread Picasso, from Mig and Christa.

Good job, you marketing geniuses! I was going to get a quote from the winner, but Darrin is actually at home with he and his wife's brand new baby boy! Congrats, Darrin!

The casual lifestyle merch and content team had a gingerbread house showdown in the spirit of Zappos core value #3 (create fun and a little weirdness) and #7 (build a positive team and family spirit) last Friday. Four teams participated: size and width, comfort/euro, casual content, and apparel/housewares. Each team had a gingerbread house and could add any item to the creation as long as it was edible. We had until 3 pm to complete our gingerbread houses. I work on the casual content team and our house (a.k.a. the masterpiece) was a three hour labor of love that involved a lot of eating and messy fingers. I have concluded that gingerbread houses are not ideal for consumption as there is a fair amount of spit and elbow grease from the assemblers included in the house. Pics above of the four completed houses (casual content masterpiece included):

Size and width presented their interpretation of a gingerbread house post- earthquake, comfort and euro created A Wizard of Oz house, casual content delivered an original work of art entitled, "The Night the Worms Ate Christmas", and apparel/housewares produced an homage to the trailer park complete with a SunChips "tin roof" and tire pile.
Our comfort business unit judged the houses and delivered their verdict at our category holiday party that evening. And the winners are:

4th place - size and width
3rd place - comfort/euro
2nd place - casual content (ROBBED!)
1st place - apparel/housewares

Obviously I feel my team had the best gingerbread house and I'm sure you do too; however, the shock value of the gingerbread double wide was impossible to defeat. Can't wait until next year!

Happy Holidays,
Danielle T.