A sweet tradition of epic proportions has returned to The Broadmoor. 

The famed, historic resort in Colorado Springs has unveiled its life-sized gingerbread display for the holiday season — a time-honored attraction with alternating themes. This year’s: a whimsical take on the upcoming Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, including what The Broadmoor calls “a whimsical tribute to one of the Games’ most exhilarating sports.” 

There’s Santa on a gingerbread bobsled adorned with macarons and meringues, the centerpiece of the display incorporating thousands of those decorative treats. Also in the hotel’s festive mezzanine are chocolate elves playing hockey and curling on a sugary layout, aiming for that bull’s-eye of red, white and blue macarons. 

A chocolate, red-nosed reindeer is among the spectators. And there’s more action: Elves on skis and a snowboard glide over sloping, fondant ramps lined by more colorful macarons and candies. 

Past displays have featured Santa in a golf cart in honor of The Broadmoor hosting the U.S. Senior Open; Santa in a boat, like one atop the resort’s lake; Santa in a train, like the one ascending Pikes Peak; and Santa in a vintage Cadillac, like the one hotel founder Spencer Penrose drove. 

Dating to the 1960s, the annual gingerbread display has become “a landmark,” The Broadmoor’s Executive Chef Justin Miller previously told The Gazette. “It’s really become a destination for people.” 

It’s the realization of hundreds of hours spent by a team overseen by Executive Pastry Chef Franck Labasse. It’s a team of confectioners and carpenters deploying both imagination and math. That’s while mixing hundreds of pounds of chocolate, sugar, butter, cream and sugar, while also cracking thousands of eggs and baking thousands of gingerbread building blocks.

The display is a yearly point of pride for Labasse, who is known to start with sketches. He is known to keep the blueprints secret from friends and family, as he said in a previous Gazette interview. “They have to wait to find out.” 

The wait is over at The Broadmoor. And the draw this time of year goes beyond the gingerbread display: The halls are decked and the grounds are aglow. Another tradition returns this month: the Holiday Shows and tickets to the on-stage entertainment, three-course dinner and overnight stay. 

For those without overnight reservations during the busy month, The Broadmoor invites people to visit Mondays through Thursdays through Dec. 18. The gingerbread display and other interior decorations remain through New Year’s Day.

For more information, go to broadmoor.com/holiday-faq.

The Broadmoor is owned by the Denver-based Anschutz Corp., whose Clarity Media Group owns The Gazette.

The Broadmoor’s gingerbread display by the numbers: 

• 658 pounds dark chocolate

• 184 pounds milk chocolate 

• 1,235 pounds flour 

• 602 pounds granulated sugar

• 833 pounds powder sugar

• 109 pounds butter

• 76 pounds rolling fondant

• 41 pounds heavy cream 

• 7 pounds salt

• 3.5 pounds baking soda 

• 2,033 eggs

• 4,800 gingerbread rectangles

• 2,533 macarons

• 800 meringues

• 160 chocolate bars