Cast your vote in Floyd gingerbread house contest

FLOYD, Va. – Gingerbread houses are no longer a four-wall home with icing and gumdrops, and this annual competition proves just that.

Floyd Country Store and Floyd Tourism have come together to host gingerbread house contests for about 10 years now, but this year they took it up a notch.

Instead of just adult and kids categories, a business category was added this year. Co-owner of the country store Heather Krantz told 10 News they’ve nearly 20 entries this year — the most they’ve ever had.

You can see the houses in-person at Floyd Country Store but you don’t have to go inside, they are on display in the store’s window. The country store even made a house of their own outside of the contest.

If you don’t feel comfortable visiting in-person, you can look at videos and pictures of each gingerbread house.

All voting is done online so you can pick a winner from anywhere. There’s one winner per category and $400 worth of prizes from Floyd County businesses.

A lot of creativity, paying attention to detail and hard work went into these incredible houses but co-owner Dylan Locke said the contest isn’t all about winning. He sees how the houses are already lifting spirits despite the tough year.

“It’s been fun to watch them through the front window and just see their faces brighten up and a lot of joy and the kids with the Frozen gingerbread house you can just see how much joy it brings,” said Locke.

Locke also said getting businesses involved this year has made this contest more about coming together.

“Anytime we do an event where businesses, families, people can come together in sort of one project that we can celebrate people’s creativity with all of these gingerbread houses I think it’s a good thing for us to do. And as usual Floyd stepped up to the challenge and really represented themselves beautifully,” said Locke.

Voting ends Tuesday, Dec. 22 and winners will be announced Dec. 23.