The Grand Hotel’s Gingerbread Village: Catch it if you can
By Michelle Matthews 

When guests enter the main building of the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, they can’t miss the 8-foot-by-16-foot replica of the 172-year-old resort on display in the lobby. Every building on the property is re-created in gingerbread, trimmed in royal icing, courtesy of the Grand’s pastry chef, Kimberly Lyons, and her hard-working pastry kitchen staff.

“You walk in, and you’re hit with the Christmas,” Kimberly says – and nothing could make her happier. It’s her favorite season. “I wish it could be Christmas year-round.”

“The guests love it as they check in,” says Kevin Hellmich, the hotel’s vice president of sales. “It’s a great way to start a visit.”

The gingerbread village is a tradition that was started before Kimberly arrived at the Grand, where she started as a cook six-and-a-half years ago, working her way up to pastry chef three years later. She loves being responsible for carrying on the tradition and making it better every year.

Kimberly and her staff started baking the gingerbread in October. Throughout the month of November, they worked on the village in a banquet room, where it was set up on four tables. They hand-cut 4,000 individual “bricks” of gingerbread to build the various buildings along Mobile Bay, with a lake in the center.

“Everything is hand-piped and handmade,” she says. “It’s definitely made with love.” And 150 pounds of powdered sugar.

She estimates that she and her staff spend 20 to 30 hours per week, for about four weeks, working on the gingerbread village – in addition to their normal duties preparing “anything sweet on the property" – before it is carefully moved to the lobby on Thanksgiving Day. There, it’s assembled and sprinkled with powdered sugar. The village also gets its own train, which runs in a constant loop around the lake.

“Overnight, we turn into Christmas. It’s so magical,” she says. “We look forward to it every year.”

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