Last year Santa’s Wonderland introduced GingerBread Lane, the largest gingerbread village in Texas. The creator of GingerBread Lane, however, hails from Queens, New York. Jon Lovitch is returning for the second time to Santa’s Wonderland. This year, he will build a 750-square-foot gingerbread village featured on a platform located in Santa’s Station.
Lovitch was a chef for 25 years, but five years ago he says he made the decision to make gingerbread villages full time.
“It takes a tremendous amount of time, and the one in Santa’s Wonderland is about 800 hours’ worth,” Lovitch says. “This year there’s going to be around 600 houses — because everything is bigger in Texas.”
Lovitch says he fell in love with the idea of GingerBread Lane in Santa’s Wonderland after one visit.
“I thought it was so cool and authentic,” Lovitch says. “The employees all looked Texan; they all had big belt buckles, big hats, and said ‘y’all’ with thick Texan accents.”
His appreciation for a Texas Christmas led him to make some new additions to this year’s gingerbread village in Santa’s Wonderland.
“There’s going to be a pickup truck with toys in the back and Santa driving it — Santa’s Texas Christmas Delivery Service,” Lovitch says. In addition, there will be a horse-drawn carriage and a giant armadillo. “And then we have the 12 days of Texas Christmas with five golden belt buckles and a possum in a walnut tree,” he says.
The Texas village will be the largest in the world by square footage, says Lovitch, who already holds the Guinness World Book of Records five-time title for the world’s most gingerbread houses.
“It’s built in New York City and driven to Texas over a 28-hour drive,” he says. “It takes four to five days to build, and while it’s big, it’s also intricate, detailed, and fragile.”
In addition to College Station, GingerBread Lane will display other villages this year in Long Island, New York, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Lovitch says.
“I traditionally start for the next year on the week of Christmas,” he says. “It’s a year-round process; it doesn't really end. A lot of it is drawing time and waiting for icing to get hard. The village in Santa’s Wonderland, when it’s all said and done in November, will be almost an 1
1-month project. That village will end up having 400 pounds of gingerbread, 1200 pounds of icing, and 300 pounds of candy.”
The key to building your own gingerbread house or village, Lovitch says, is to avoid the DIY kits. And while you may not need several hundred pounds, buying an extra tub of icing is his No. 1 tip.
“If you feel you have the skill to execute this from scratch at home, you should do that and avoid the kits,” Lovitch says. “The kits don’t have enough icing, and it’s really not that hard to make one from scratch. It’s more fun and tasty, but don’t try to do it all in one day because you want to get it right.”
Santa’s Wonderland is open from Nov. 13 to Dec. 30, with hours of operation and ticket prices listed on santas-wonderland.com.
“Santa’s Wonderland is a wonderful place to come for any reason, but GingerBread Lane is just one more reason to go,” says Lovitch.
