3 gingerbread houses = A record?

Making and decorating gingerbread houses must be one of the most Christmassy things to do. I made my first last year under the guidance of experienced G-bread house decorators (and Y's cousins) G & A.This year not only me and G & A, but Y and my sister Soph congregated with the slabs of ginger bread we'd carefully baked a few days before to transform our amateurish thick pieces of biscuit into beautiful houses.
We first got very excited and broke open all the bags of confectionery we'd brought, before realising the strenuous and stressful job of actually assembling the house had to be achieved before any decoration could begin.
It was at about this time that Y began acting suspiciously. Whilst she slept at 6am on Friday morning, I had lovingly made 2 sets of gingerbread walls and roofs, so that we could have one each (largely so that I could retain complete creative control over my own house - I don't really like to share). But whilst the rest of us were using the concrete that is royal icing to erect our walls, Y was busy in a corner with a chopping board and serrated knife - hacking into the gingerbread walls! Y, what are you doing??? She came smugly back to the table with one square of gingerbread and 4 strips barely more than 1inch wide. Hmmmm ... curious.
Meanwhile, with the help of skewers and cans for structural support (and in Soph's case, pins - beware if you're a friend of hers and she proffers gingerbread house) we slowly stuck walls to the cake boards, then balanced and concreted the gingerbread roofs in place. I made that sound easy, but it was extremely tense in that room. Barely a word was uttered. Occasionally someone reached for a chocolate button and a slurp of tea, but it was back to work almost instantly. Once our houses were erected, the fun began - decoration time! Don't assume this involves any less concentration. The tension continued, unabated.
Y was now producing a licorice Catherine wheel and started unravelling more licorice. What was she up to?
The rest of us plastered on roof tiles of jelly tots, dolly mix, Haribo fruits, white chocolate freckles. The list goes on, and on. Compliments were given to a good design of another, but never without a jealous undercurrent of regret that one hadn't thought of it themselves, followed closely by the realisation that there weren't enough red skittles left to copy.
Over several hours our houses took shape - they really did look spectacular. As did Y's .... RECORD PLAYER! Clever, very clever. And not just because the design greatly cut down on the surface area needing to be meticulously covered with icing and sweets. The final result of 3 houses and 1 record player, was extremely satisfying. For a while G, Soph & I just stood and gazed at our creations, whilst Y & A took paparazzi style photos of these works of art. Next, we wrapped them in cellophane and looked extremely smug on the way home at everyone who stared in admiration at our beautiful Christmas gingerbread houses (or perhaps they were looking at the record player?)
(By the way, I wasn't so impressed with the recipe I used this year, but this one worked well last year)