What began in 2004 as a bonding activity for different nursing units at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has morphed into a hotly-contested competition involving a simple holiday tradition: The gingerbread house.
This year’s NIH Gingerbread House Decorating Contest included 64 entries from teams of NIH nurses, researchers, doctors, engineers and other employees all displayed in the main atrium of the Clinical Center on NIH’s Bethesda campus.
“I don’t know that we really thought it was going to be more than just a year or two,” said Ann Marie Matlock, a service chief in NIH’s Clinical Center Nursing Department who helped start the contest. “We had no idea it would grow like this at all.”
The contest started 11 years ago as nursing units from different institutes within NIH were preparing to move in with each other at the new Clinical Center building that opened in 2005.
It’s grown in each year since and has become a holiday tradition for NIH employees and patients alike.
Left: The first-place winning Super Mario Bros. gingerbread house from NIH's Rehabilitation Medicine Department Team. Right: The first-place winning gingerbread house from NIH's Medical Neuroendocrinology division.
“The patients really appreciate the display,” said Leora Hernandez, a member of the Clinical Center’s Nursing Department, who helps organize the contest.
“I am totally blown away,” wrote one patient or visitor on a ballot for this year’s contest. “This is insanely cool!!!” wrote another.
This year’s contest featured two categories of first-, second- and third-place winners based on about 2,400 in-person paper ballots and about 6,100 votes via shares or likes on Facebook.
"The Simpsons" gingerbread house display from NIH's Primary Immune Deficiency Clinic
Each year, NIH units that participate get a gingerbread house making kit, with the rule that the materials in the kit must be incorporated in the final design in some way.
Some construct the houses. Others use the materials in the box as part of more elaborate designs.
Matlock said all ingredients in all of the displays must be edible, though she advises they use glue on the bottom of each structure to make sure the displays remain in place.
Themes for the displays this year included The Simpsons and, of course, Star Wars.
Each team gets about two weeks to work on its creation and in a federal agency full of researchers, doctors and other biomedical professionals, the displays can get complex.
One of the first place winners this year, the team at NIH’s Rehabilitation Medicine department, made a castle-like structure featuring characters from the Super Mario Bros. video games. Those viewing the display can push a fake Nintendo controller button and a battery moves one of the characters.
“We tend to be a very competitive bunch, so absolutely it’s about bragging rights,” Matlock said.
Gingerbread display from nurses and doctors in NIH's Hematology/Oncology Day Hospital. All photos by Aaron Kraut
