BARRETT TOWNSHIP -- A Monroe County resort has a treat tucked away inside for visitors throughout the entire holiday season: a life-sized gingerbread house sits just off the main lobby in the Pocono resort.
It's not a fairytale. This is a real life-sized gingerbread house inside the Skytop Lodge near Canadensis.
It's a sight 10-year-old Jonah Halperin can hardly believe.
"It's an amazing, like, miraculous thing that they've constructed here. And it's, like, unbelievable."
This is about 3,500 pounds of gingerbread and about 150 pounds of icing, topped off with candy, and goodies galore.
Dough mixing began back in September.
"We started rolling all of the dough out in October, and then in November we started baking off all of the pieces, and then we started constructing it onto the house," said executive pastry chef Christa Sapone.
Dani Halperin, age 8, could smell the gingerbread house from far away.
"It's awesome. But we did find out that it's all wood, if you look over there. But the gingerbread's around it which is pretty cool."
When you take a closer look at this life-sized gingerbread house, you can tell throughout this Christmas season, it's definitely needed some repairs.
"We have to come out here at least two to three times a week to continue putting candy back onto the house, and we have to fix our train tracks every day," said Sapone.
The miller family is visiting Skytop for the first time and stopped by the gingerbread house.
Brayden, age 6, says his younger sister may have taken some of the candy.
"The whole gingerbread house, she destroyed it," he laughed.
The Millers say this life-sized house was the perfect treat for their two young kids.
"How big is the gingerbread house?"
"Big like this, like this!"
And they hope to come back and visit again soon.
"Absolutely, we're probably going to come here again for the holidays."
You can make reservations to enjoy a meal inside the life-sized gingerbread house from now through January 4.
