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James Kissell and Stephanie Gaufin build graham cracker creations to take a mental health break and spread Christmas cheer. This year, they constructed the Hogwarts school from "Harry Potter."

Courtesy James Kissell

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A video of James Kissell and Stephanie Gaufin's graham cracker creation has had 15 million hits and shares on social media.

Courtesy James Kissell

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An overhead view of the massive Hogwarts School of "Christmas" Magic, created by James Kissell and Stephanie Gaufin.

Courtesy James Kissell

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One of the "easter eggs" found in James Kissell and Stephanie Gaufin's Hogwarts graham cracker creation.

Courtesy James Kissell

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Graham crackers and frosting go together like peanut butter and jelly or Santa Claus and reindeer. For that reason, it is not surprising that James Kissell and his wife, Stephanie Gaufin, have become an international sensation with their Gingerbread Therapy graham cracker creations.

Taking up most of his mother-in-law’s kitchen in Provo is a graham cracker and frosting replica of Harry Potter’s alma mater, Hogwarts — not just one building, but all of it, including the Quidditch stadium. The pictures tell the tale of how big this creation is.

“My wife is skilled and does the finishing like with the wreaths and garland,” Kissell said. “I get to design the architecture.”

Sadly, they are only giving tours to members of the family, and for good reason. Kissell said there is no way the couple could give tours to the number of people who have seen it on their TikTok and Instagram accounts.

After spending 75 hours over the Thanksgiving holiday, they put their video of the Hogwarts creation on TikTok and went to dinner.

“We had no idea what to expect,”Kisssell said. “When we came home from dinner, we had 50,000 hits. After 24 hours, we had 1 million. People started sharing and we now have 15 million views.”

Actress Jennifer Garner was one of those who saw it and shared it. Kissell said they have received messages from several individuals in numerous languages from around the world.

The name of their social media sites, Gingerbread Therapy, does not reflect an edible gingerbread house, but more a metaphor for the graham cracker house.

“Gingerbread houses are metaphorical for candy houses, and the graham cracker house is metaphorical for the gingerbread house,” Kissell said.

The couple’s graham cracker creation construction started in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic had people still staying in place and needing to use their creativity for their mental health.

“The most important reasons why we do this is it’s a creative outlet for a mental health break and we wanted to spread holiday cheer to as many people as we could,” Kissell said.

Their 2020 creation was Santa’s village. In 2021, they went to Australia for inspiration and ended up doing the Sydney Harbor with the Sydney Opera House and the harbor bridge. Kissell said it took about 100 candy canes for the bridge.

“We felt we needed to keep going, so we did Hogwarts,” Kissell said.

“This was such a large project. We used 27 boxes of graham crackers and 29 pounds of powdered sugar. The turret base is Styrofoam. There were other things that we got for it too. We used a glue gun (rather than icing) to hold it together,” Kissell said.

The couple is always asked why they haven’t entered their creations into the gingerbread house contest at University Place or at the Festival of Trees. Kissell said the size limitations and other restrictions made it impossible. In the future, however, they would like to have something on display like at Primary Children’s Hospital or other child-centric locations.

While looking over the Hogwarts campus, you might notice an “easter egg” or two, including a blue car caught in the Christmas Tree. It isn’t the Whomping Willow from the “Harry Potter” series, Kissell noted, but it is festive.

Kissell said he and his wife don’t keep track of the cost, but they do recycle. In fact, some of the graham crackers on this year’s buildings were used last year as well as some of the candy.

Kissell grew up in South Jordan and attended Brigham Young University. Gaufin grew up in Provo and attended BYU, where the couple met. They currently share their time between Provo and California.

Kissell said they are still taking ideas for next year’s display, which could be anything from the Taj Mahal to the Disneyland castle. Whatever they decide to do, it will be to give themselves a much needed mental health break and to spread holiday cheer.

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