Update for Monday, December 15: Postmaster Mark Favale was disappointed to arrive at the Hawleyville Post Office, Monday morning, December 15, only to discover that the gingerbread house given to the post office last week - one of four created for the 2013/14 holiday stamps - had succumbed to the dry heat of the office. Frosted doors, shutters, and candy accessories had fallen off and broken. Birds and squirrels were invited to feast on the remains, set outside of the Route 25/Barnabas Road post office.

A United States Postal Service (USPS) 2013-14 holiday stamp has come to life at Hawleyville Post Office. Self-taught gingerbread artist Teresa Layman of Warren, Conn. delivered one of the actual gingerbread houses that made up the four-house stamp series first issued in November 2013, as a gift to the local post office.

“I did the project five years ago,” said Ms Layman, who along with having crafted the decorative gingerbread houses to be photographed for the stamps, is the author of Gingerbread Things to Make and Bake and Gingerbread For all Seasons. “They were sitting in my basement, and I decided it was time to share them with the world,” she said, during her Wednesday, December 10 visit to Hawleyville Post Office.

Because she signed an agreement with the USPS not to sell the houses that had posed for the stamps, Ms Layman decided to gift three of the four houses to small, area post offices.

“It’s theirs, to do with as they please,” she said, gently settling the “Yellow” house onto  a counter. The “Blue” house and the “Green” house, so called because of the colored candies used predominantly for decorating, have been given to post offices in Kent and in Marbledale. The “Red” house, despite being sealed in a plastic container, as were the others, did not survive the storage period.

Each of the gingerbread houses has walls made from real gingerbread, using royal icing to hold it together and for details.

“[Royal icing] dries to an almost porcelain finish,” said Ms Layman, which makes it beautiful, but also quite fragile. The “Yellow” house at Hawleyville Post Office is topped with a roof “tiled” with Boston lemon fruit slices.

The path to having the gingerbread houses become stamps was as long and winding as a game of Candyland. Ms Layman first conceived the idea in 2007. “I just thought a gingerbread stamp would be cool,” said Ms Layman, who has crafted gingerbread creations of all manner. “They are non-denominational and just fun.”

She contacted the USPS and kept at it, until the idea was accepted.

“It was a really long process,” she said. She spent two years making gingerbread houses and getting feedback. Some were too big, some had detailing too small, and others needed brighter colors.

“First I was doing one stamp, then two, and then [the USPS] said to do four,” Ms Layman said. The whole process took six years, and was so secretive, Ms Layman was sworn to not tell a soul about the project. It was as much a surprise to her as anyone else, she said, when the stamps were published last year.

Hawleyville Postmaster Mark Favale is delighted with the gift. The gingerbread house will be displayed in the post office, located in the plaza at the corner of Route 25 and Barnabas Road, through the holiday season — “Or until the first kid tips it over!” Mr Favale said. Fingers crossed, he hopes that area residents will be able to enjoy the special gift this season, and many more.