BOISE, Idaho — As the holiday season swiftly approaches, families across the Treasure Valley are beginning to take part in their holiday traditions.
From putting together puzzles to baking cookies and cakes, there is no limit to the holiday activities families can take part in.
One of the most widely-loved activities for children and parents alike it putting together a gingerbread house. Many local grocery stores sell kits with pre-made cookie pieces, icing and candy while some spend time baking all ingredients from scratch.
One local couple takes the craft a step further, creating buildings and monuments both national and close to home.
Their most recent gingerbread house was created to welcome President-elect Joe Biden, his wife Jill and their two dogs into the White House in just about 40 days.
Eldon and Tricia Gale started crafting buildings out of gingerbread when a local building inspired them.
"When the Meridian Temple was dedicated, we were driving by one day and we said you know what, I wonder if we could make that a gingerbread, and we attempted it," Eldon Gale said. "It was pretty cool and we sort of went from there."
In total, the pair spent about 100 hours creating the Temple. Last year, they created a Downton Abbey inspired gingerbread house as done by Martha Stewart.
This year, they decided to create the White House out of gingerbread, a task that is far easier said than done.
"The White House, you think you know what it looks like until you actually try to build it, and then it just creates a whole bunch of questions and problems with how are we going to do that in food," Eldon Gale said. "It probably took more time but we were smarter about the time and we knew going into it what it was going to take in terms of baking and drying and glazing and decorating, and it was a good probably two weeks building this one of at least probably six to eight hours a day."
In terms of weight, the pair used around 40 pounds of gingerbread to create the White House.
"You'll notice there's a lot of windows, I think there's 75 or so windows, so you bake the piece and then you end up throwing quite a bit of it away because you cut the windows and doors out and cut off the edges and whatnot," Eldon Gale said.
In addition to the 40 pounds of gingerbread, nearly 50 pounds of powdered sugar was used to make the house white.
"We had to glaze it, so you don't actually see the brown gingerbread portion of it. So the whole thing has been glazed in powdered sugar and then we had to make a sugar paste called pastillage, which is made out of powdered sugar as well," Eldon Gale said. "We took a more realist approach where all the decorations on here are done pretty much by piping royal icing onto it. But then you can see things like the windows are melted sugar. Some of the features like the stairs are gum, the walkway that goes around the outside of it is gum, the pillars that support it are those jumbo candy canes, things like that."
Out of all the gingerbread creations the pair have made, the White House one is their favorite.
"Just put this year and the political process and everything going on," Tricia Gale said. "It was a great way to just show the symbol of freedom for our country and no matter what side of the aisle you fall on and it's just to remind us of our freedoms during the holidays and it reaches out to so many people."
All good things must come to an end, unfortunately. Once the holiday season is over, the pair disposes of the house in a very cathartic way.
"It's kind of fun.Wwe take a hammer and we just, just go at it," Eldon Gale said. "It's fun to build but you can't keep it forever. We eventually want our life to get back. Right now, we love having it and we're excited to share it with other people."
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