Gingerbread village is amazing Christmas attraction at Chateau on the Lake

Making gingerbread houses is a long-running holiday tradition. But chances are you and your family have never gone about erecting a three-foot-tall village.

That's exactly what the folks at Chateau on the Lake have been doing every year since they opened in 1997.

The hotel and spa in Branson is known for its breathtaking outdoor views.

But inside this Christmas you'll notice a repelling Santa coming down a rope in the atruim, a Nativity Scene from the movie "Home Alone" which was "purchased by the Chateau for $125,000 according to John Parker, the general manager of Chateau on the Lake, and a beautiful lighted gingerbread village that includes five stores and homes plus a church with a jellybean bell tower and a balcony with the pope wearing a Hersey's kiss hat plus "the stained glass windows are made out of gummy bears," Parker adds.

It took 175 hours for a team of around 20 to build this work of art using 300 pounds of sugar, 120 pounds of eggs, and 600 pounds of candy.

You could spend hours and still not notice all the intricate, meticulous pieces from cookie rooftops and tractors to peppermint awnings, Hersey bar doors, Pop Tart sleds and white chocolate-covered snowballs used in snowball fights.

"This is one of the reindeer," explains Nathan Wood, the director of sales and marketing, pointing to one of the hundreds of pieces around the buildings. "He's made with a chocolate pretzel that's broken in half as well as a Nutter-Butter cookie."

"So we have numerous walking paths," Parker says about the walkways between buildings. "And what's unique is that they look like mosaics and are made out of pretzels and sunflower seeds."

"Here you have the fire pit," Wood says of an outdoor setting with gingerbread men sitting around a campfire. "You have pretzels for the wood and hot tamales as the fire. And then you have the coffee cookies with the pretzel and lemon heads as streetlamps."

"Our culinary team bring in their children as well to help create this magic and the smiles and how their eyes light up when they're working on this absolutely warms your heart."

"This is absolutely awesome," says Rachelle Johnson, as she and her husband Michael made the trip from Springfield just to check it out the gingerbread village, which has become its own tourist attraction.

"The creativity, the use of things that you can recognize from your own cabinets at home," she answered when asked what she liked about the village. "When I saw the Pop tarts my 12 year-old son Jared loves Pop Tarts. It's so neat to see the use of common household things."

"The gingerbread and candy houses have turned into their own attraction," added Parker. "We actually have bus tours and when they come in and see the candy houses, every year they change. Every year it's different."

"If this doesn't put in the spirit of Christmas you're just Scrooge and Grinch wrapped up in one," Rachelle said with a laugh.

The Chateau's gingerbread village will be up through December 28 and there will be a special Breakfast with Santa this coming Saturday morning at 9 a.m. with proceeds going to the Convoy of Hope.