Every year around this time, we host a competition to see who has the best gingerbread construction skills. This year we went all out and hired celebrity Zapponian Jamie N. to host the event, in front of a live audience in the luxurious and distinguished Zappos Corporate headquarters in Fabulous Las Vegas!

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.