Holiday cookies are the sparkling calling cards of the season, crunchy, sweet gifts that are as fun to make as they are to give.

This site offers a treasure trove of textures, flavors and shapes to fill your gift boxes or cookies platters. Peppermint candy cookies, bright green cornflake wreath and snowy nut balls are old school favorites from childhood. Succulent lemon diamondsand peppermint bars add height and color variety. Macaroons bring golden coconut bliss, while peanut butter cookiesbecome peanut blossoms with the addition of a chocolate kiss in the center of each cookie. Take the time to roll out a few different cookies as well; decorating crisped moons, stars, menorahs or Santas is a delicious rite of the season.
 
My earliest cookie memories offer up a Harvest Gold kitchen covered in newspaper with me and my brother and sister spattered with red, green, blue and yellow frosting. Cheeks full of red hots, colored sugar glimmered in our hair and silver dragees skittered across the table as we created the perfect plate of sugar cookies for Santa.

In our house, cookies leveled the playing field. Grandma Virene, the chic, city-dwelling grandmother, could always be counted on for a stash of spicy gingersnaps when she swept in wearing her champagne-colored fur. Grandma Olga arrived from her Nebraska farm with a box of gingery, delicious “gingerbread peoples,” beautifully decked out in colorful frosting outfits.  The cookie tray, by then full of everyone’s dazzling handiwork, was placed on the sideboard, at a perfect height for our wide eyes and sneaky fingers.

Over the years, cookies parties have “matured” from sugar-demented kid fests to a group of friends gathering with some juicy red wine and a rainbow of Kitchen-Aids. Treasured family recipes are shared while Eartha Kitt croons “Santa Baby” and an easygoing assembly line produces enough variety for all of us to take home.

To get a good mix of recipes, we’ll usually send a round of e-mails with our planned offerings to make sure there’s no overlap. Costs are pooled for staples like flour, sugars and spices and each of us brings any specialty ingredients… plus music that will keep us shaking and baking. Figure you’ll be setting an entire afternoon or evening aside to catch up on the news, roll dough and enjoy each other’s company.

Cooking with a group also increases the selection of cookie cutters. I have a friend who has a manic collection including everything from the flying pigs to the Sphinx. I tend to go junking for cutters, combing second hand stores and sometimes lucking out with wood-handled gems from the 30’s and 40’s. Vintage Christmas ornaments and décor are also pretty common finds. eBay is another good resource for retro cutters, and the internet abounds with new and old cutter sites. As for sourcing cooking tools like baking sheets, bowls and spatulas, I turn to restaurant supply stores for the sturdiest, longest lasting and awesomely priced tools.

Large pieces of mirrored glass make great cookies trays, especially when you line up a variety in different patterns to create a glam display. (Check out hardware stores and glass shops.) Silver, stainless or glass trays can also act as a base to build on.

So there it is, a recipe for fun, whether cooking with the kids ( or enjoying time with family and friends. Delish.

Happy Baking!

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Catherine Christensen