Photos: Diane Schenker's gingerbread creations

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Diane Schenker displays a gingerbread model of the Eiffel Tower on her Anchorage dining room table on December 14, 2015. For decades, Schenker’s Christmas tradition has been to construct elaborate gingerbread houses and other structures from scratch. This model is dedicated to the city of Paris. Schenker built the tower as a way to commemorate the fortitude of the French people who recently suffered violence at the hands of terrorists. Schenker’s gingerbread designs have also included cabins, commercial buildings, the White House and a sailboat.

Each year around Christmas, Diane Schenker makes an elaborate gingerbread house. Schenker's houses aren't anything like the pre-built boxed kinds people can pick up at Costco. They're elaborate and detailed, and usually based on her own designs. Her sister Lorraine O'Neal insists the structures rival any "rival any Martha Stewart creation."

In almost 30 years of building houses, she's made enough structures to fill a Christmas village, including a greenhouse with a hard candy roof, downtown Anchorage's Voyager Hotel and even her own Stuckagain Heights home with a giant black bear peeking through the window.

Some creations take days to build, others weeks. Schenker, who's retired from the state, has no formal baking training. While the designs are elaborate, she said the whole process is just for fun.

"People assume I'm more fanatical than I am," she said.

Read more: Recipes and tips from a master gingerbread house builder