A Gingerbread House for Cats Is the Holiday DIY Project That'll Make Your Dog Jealous

Depending on the temperament of your felines, cats and Christmas trees can be a bad combination. What are Christmas trees really if not a bunch of little cat toys hanging from one giant cat toy? It’s a problem faced by Chris and Jess, a couple of cat-loving YouTubers who run a channel named after their two kitties, Cole and Marmalade. As it turns out, Marmalade has earned a reputation as a Christmas tree destroyer, but Chris and Jess didn’t want to let it ruin their holiday spirit—or yours, if you happen to be in a similar situation. So the couple recently posted a video for how to make a DIY gingerbread house for cats.

Full disclosure, this “gingerbread” house uses no actual gingerbread. It’s more just a homemade cat tower created in the style of a gingerbread house. That said, this fact should probably be pretty self-explanatory seeing as the only thing more likely to be destroyed by a cat than a giant tree would be a giant house made out of food. Instead, Chris and Jess use cardboard boxes for their gingerbread walls, white paper products for their frosting, paper towel rolls covered in wrapping paper for their candy canes, and colored plastic egg halves as their jellybeans.

In the end, the video itself is seven minutes long, and the actual construction of this gingerbread house for cats took way longer than that. They don’t say exactly how long, but let’s just say they put their glue gun to plenty of use. But hey, you don’t get to over half a million YouTube subscribers by half-assing your DIY cat towers. Plus, it’s not like making a real gingerbread house is easy. (And growing a Christmas tree from scratch would definitely take you far longer.) Still, if you’re considering attempting this project, you’ll need some seriously love for your cats. But hopefully, you’re kitties will love you back for it. Hopefully. They’re cats; you can never be totally sure.