Let’s get back to some Christmas events, shall we? How about a massive cityscape made of nothing but gingerbread, candy, icing and lashings of patience? Yes – I thought it sounded like a winner too.

So today Ryan and I hopped in the car and went to the New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens for the world’s largest gingerbread exhibit, which I’d spotted in the New York Times last week.

I’d been so fixated on seeing those gingerbread houses that I’d not really thought about other things we could do at the museum – and it was those activities that turned out to be the biggest treat of the day.

But of course, we went there via Gingerbread Lane.

When we first reached the exhibition, it was much smaller and messier than I’d imagined – sweets stuck on haphazardly, crumbling icing and crude, lopsided buildings. But when I walked around once and looked a little closer, I realized just how much thought, preparation, creativity and time had gone into this monstrous scene of sweeties.

The whole creation features 164 buildings, which weigh a whopping 1.5 tons in total – earning it the title of the world’s largest edible gingerbread exhibit in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was made by chef Jon Lovitch, who lovingly baked every single piece in his Bronx apartment before assembling the village at the museum.

As with the train show at the Transit Museum last week, the highlights were in the details. The little sign posts, the piped Christmas trees, the cartoonish fire engines, the smiling carousel horses and the jelly-dotted castles. They weren’t stuck together willy nilly – no, they all seemed to have been designed and placed with thought.

And as a whole, the scene created one sweet spectacle.

The exhibit was perfect for kids (big and small) – just like the rest of the museum.

The museum is fantastic – it’s how you want every museum to be: interactive and thankfully not too busy. We wandered through floors of optical illusions, sports games and space adventures – getting involved as much as we could.

The optical illusion floor – complete with a hall of mirrors – was our favorite.

Then we headed to Mars and the batting cages.

While the New York Hall of Science is a little further away than the city’s other good museums, it is by far the most interactive – and therefore fun – one I have been to all year. The gingerbread exhibit was cute, but my favorite part about it was how it gave me the nudge to get up there and see what other goodies the museum had to offer.

It also gave me some pretty good tips for next weekend, when I have a gingerbread house session planned. Pictures to follow!