Pondering Gingerbread Houses

How did gingerbread houses come to be associated with Christmas?  The only story I'm familiar with that features a gingerbread house is Hansel and Gretel and that ends up (at least in the original version) with the wicked witch planning to eat the children and being killed in her own oven.  Not very Christmasie in my mind. Now gingerbread I can understand. Gingerbread is delicious to eat, fragrant to sniff while baking, but not necessarily that exciting to look at. It is fun to make into gingerbread boys or girls but then you face the dilemma of how to eat them - head first or feet first? Maybe gingerbread houses were created to give the gingerbread people a place to live, but they don't last long enough around my place for that to be a necessity. So, while I may be baking some gingerbread in the next couple of weeks, I won't be making it into a house. Does that make me a '"ginger grinch?"