By Amira Van Leeuwen
KYLE — When Kristine Lilly was growing up, her mother sent her off to school with homemade gingerbread houses for her class party before Christmas break.
“It was magical,” Lilly said.
As COVID-19 exploded in 2020, Lilly recalled handing out candy with a mask and tongs at Halloween and her kids, being in the armed forces, could not come home.
“I was really concerned. How are we going to feel joy at Christmas time?” she wondered.
Photo by Amira Van Leeuwen Owner and creator of the Kyle Gingerbread House, Kristine Lilly.
She reflected on her childhood and thought, “Maybe I can just turn my whole house into the gingerbread house and people can just drive by and maybe it’ll spark some magic in their heart for the season.”
That was when the Kyle Gingerbread House, a life-sized gingerbread house, was born.
The house is located at 285 McGarity St. in Kyle. Most of the house’s decorations are handmade by Lilly, who sits on her living room floor with cutting tools to cut and glue things together. Lilly is good at math, which helps her when measuring the roofline and figuring out how the pieces will fit together.
Lilly also bakes gingerbread cookies and sells gingerbread house kits, wax melts, candles and hot cocoa to offset the cost of the Gingerbread House decorations.
But there is more to the Gingerbread House than meets the eye.
When she was in her 20s, Lilly and her children suffered from food insecurity, so she would make transportation arrangements to and from the food bank. She was grateful for the food bank during that time of hardship and wanted to give back.
“Food insecurity is not an issue that just affected us then, it’s every day, everywhere, and it shouldn’t be that way. Nobody should be hungry ever in this country — the wealthiest country in the world,” she said.
Photo by Amira Van Leeuwen Canned food donations for the Hays County Food Bank.
On a few nights of the holiday season, she hosts food drives requesting that attendees bring non-perishable food items to donate to the Hays County Food Bank. The drive also includes a visit with Santa and free hot cocoa and peppermint candies.
Over the past couple of years, she noticed that the second drive is “always bigger” than the first. In a food drive on Dec. 3, she collected $230 in cash donations and more than 500 pounds of food.
Lilly’s granddaughter, Gabrielle Helms, 11, loves helping at the Gingerbread House.
“I like how we can raise donations for the Hays County Food Bank,” Helms said. “We work really hard to put all this together.”
One of Lilly’s favorite products is her infamous gingerbread cookies, which is an old family recipe.
“I don’t share it with anybody, but everybody says my gingerbread cookies are the best they’ve ever had in their entire life,” Lilly said. “I really enjoy making them too.”
At its most recent food drive on Saturday, the Kyle Gingerbread House raised $665 and received 1,011 pounds of donated food.
