It's almost December, which means the holiday season is all around us. Maybe you are planning your Christmas shopping, maybe you refuse to even think about it until Thanksgiving is over. But one thing you should be thinking about and planning for is the Gingerbread Spectacular, Dec. 12 and 13 at the Opera House of Boothbay Harbor.

On Wednesday, Nov. 18, Kevin Kiley gave a class on gingerbread house construction at the Opera House. He hoped to inspire people to enter creations in the event.

Kiley gave tips of gingerbread recipes, design ideas, and construction. He showed tricks learned from his mom, such as using a grater to square off edges or keeping a wet paper towel over a bowl of frosting to keep it soft while constructing.

He showed examples of different design ideas, such as shingles done with Necco wafers, cookies, and Chex Mix pieces. He advised thinking out of the box past the “normal” decorations and to check places like the cereal aisle.

“If you plan ahead it will save you a lot of stress,” Kiley said. “And don't try to do it all in one evening. Maybe bake one evening, and decorate another.”

He told the class participants, if they planned to enter the event that “anything edible goes” and that people have used items such as dyed spaghetti for flowers and graham crackers as furniture with Ritz bits cushions.

“The most important thing – other than building on a steady base – is to have fun with it,” Kiley said. “We want everyone to participate of all skill levels.”

For home bakers, he suggested making small “mini” houses from kits and having kids over for a party where they can decorate and take home a house. He invited the kids in the audience to come up and do just that with a couple of small houses he constructed ahead of time.

After class, a couple of adults got into the fun of decorating the tiny houses as well.

“We made an army fort last year for the show,” Nicole Main said, working next to her daughter Deanna. “Sometimes we made mistakes and those became explosions.”

Entry forms for the Gingerbread Spectacular can be found at www.boothbayregister.com or picked up from the Opera House on Townsend Avenue.