Now that we've solidly moved past the Thanksgiving holiday, and we're all rested up from a long day of Black Friday shopping, it's time to turn our attention to one of the next important events, the Old Town Home Gingerbread House Challenge.

If you haven't heard, we're hosting a gingerbread house challenge for all of our readers. Even better, by entering you get a chance to win $50 to be used towards an in-store or online purchase at Red Barn Mercantile, one of our favorite local home retailers. Yes, it's that easy, just build a gingerbread house and submit it for a chance to win! 

And, as a little gift from us and Red Barn, don't forget to mention "Alex & Wendy" in-store, or use the coupon code OLDTOWNHOME during online checkout for an instant 15% discount through December 31. 

We started looking around online for a bit of inspiration for this year's challenge and found a pretty amazing time lapse video of a gingerbread Swiss chalet construction project. I figured I could share it with you to give you a little inspiration for your own creation to enter into our Gingerbread House Challenge.

What do you think? How awesome was the rice crispy treat snow covered mountain base? What about the carmel window boxes? I think that was my favorite feature. They make it look so easy, don't they? 

Ok, that should be enough inspiration to get your creative juices flowing. Time to get started on your entry for the Old Town Home Gingerbread House Challenge. We can't wait to see what our readers submit!