This week the Parks lab continued its tradition of a holiday party to celebrate the end of a year of hard work and accepted publications. We ate pizza and treats until we were bursting and exchanged our “Secret Snowman” gifts to reveal who got a gift from which lab member. And most importantly, we poured all the creativity the Parks lab has to offer into decorating a gingerbread house!

We get a little intense in our decorating fervor. Our goal was to make this year’s creation better and more elaborate than ever. With the addition of “stained-glass windows,” I’m pretty sure we succeeded. And we couldn’t resist shaping one of the windows into a whale fluke!

Dana wielded the frosting while Leanna crushed lifesavers to make up the windowpanes.

  

Jess made the most beautiful gumdrop creations I have ever seen, including two wreaths and accessories for our snowman.

We were all very impressed – Jess is pretty crafty with gumdrops. The rest of us threw in ideas and took photos as our gingerbread house was completed.

 

Santa had a slight mishap that was corrected via the application of more frosting…

And, done!

Happy Holidays from the Parks Lab!

-Hannah