Who bakes Christmas cookies?

I do! This year I'm baking vanilla crescents, coconut hills, chocolate macaroons, gingerbread, cinnamon stars and marzipan stollen-cookies.

My wife makes some cookies she saw in a magazine once, and they're a HUGE hit ..

All it is:

- Chocolate Sugar Cookie dough .. Buy it, make it, use grandma's, doesn't matter.
- Rollo candies

Take a cookie-portion of dough and wrap it completely around the Rollo, making a ball, then just cook them like regular sugar cookies ...

Boom. Caramel-filled chocolate sugar cookies ..

I baked over 800 cookies for my department at work last year. That was while I wasn't able to exercise and had a lot of free time. this year they get a giant box of Whitman chocolate because I have to work out.

Not cookies but super easy...... (Rollos on my mind, I guess)

Take 1 mini pretzel knot, 1 Rollo, 1 Pecan half

Put parchment paper on your cookie sheet.....place pretzels all around. Top each with 1 Rollo candy. Bake at 250° for a couple minutes .....take them out of the oven and press a pecan half on top of each. Whallah!

I love to bake cookies, have already started my Christmas baking with: Cream cheese thumbprint cookies filled with homemade jam. Peanut butter cookies, and made a huge batch of soft caramel that I'm dipping in dark chocolate (1/2 that batch has amaretto in the dark chocolate). Haven't decided on the rest of my cookies yet, but will be baking lots tomorrow.

I bake Christmas everything. I give mine out as gifts. If you want something simple you could try the kraft peanut butter cookie recipe. It's 1 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 egg. and in the oven they go at 325F for 20 mins. Or you could make a shortbread recipe. This one is really good and the kids can decorate them however they want.

http://www.robinhood.ca/Recipes/Cookies/Shortbread/Shortbread-Cookies

or if you want to be different you could make rice krispie treats and cut them out with Christmas cookie cutters then have your kids decorate. They're not cookies but you could tell them Santa loves rice krispies and if they're young they might not think anything of it :P.

We've baked and decorated sugar cookies for years and yes it does make a huge mess. The kids love it though so I just deal. We've made it into a social event over the last few years so we always pick a family and have them over to decorate with us. My husband's family makes Lefse every year but since we're gluten free me and a couple of our kids can't really help with that part since just breathing it makes us sick. We bring baked cookies and everyone decorates them in another room, away from the flour fest. That way we still get to participate but not get sick and I make our gf lefse at home.

Not really an alternative for you but just wanted to mention that some traditions are messy or time consuming but your kids will remember those times forever. I have three teens, my oldest is almost 20 and they all still love decorating Christmas cookies with me. I will tolerate the mess for the memories we've created.

I don't have kids so I'll just share that making Christmas cookies with my mom is one of my favorite childhood memories. I think it is for many, many people. So it's probably worth it even if it is a huge mess and time-consuming. :flowerforyou:

ETA: this year I made fudge -- 9 different kinds. It was fun, and it's going to be awesome giving it away.

We make Molasses cookies lol. My daughter loves them .

I'm the family Christmas cookie baker! It started when I was a single mom and couldn't really afford to buy gifts for everyone. One year I bought gifts and didn't make cookies...man did I hear about it for the entire year!! I have a few cookies I make every year and then I throw in a few new ones for variety:

Annual cookies:
Lebkuchens (family recipe...how this 'tradition" started)
Cream Cheese Christmas cutouts (frosted & decorated)
Buckeyes

This year's extras:
Peppermint Sugar Cookie bars
Eggnog Snickerdoodles
Chocolate Crinkles topped with White Chocolate M&M's

I'm also making Chex Mix, Peppermint Puppy Chow, and a candy type bar that has a pretzel base topped with caramel and chocolate layers.

Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow while we're getting 6" of snow! Gotta have a couple of boxes ready to send out on Monday to relatives!

I do, and it's a 3-day project with at least a dozen recipes (and yes, lets of cleaning up). Easiest (and always a favorite):

Pretzel Turtles



Mini Pretzels
Rolo Candies
Pecan Halves

Preheat oven to 300F
Arrange the pretzels in a single layer on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
Place one Rolo on each pretzel.
Bake for ~4 minutes.
While the candy is warm, press a pecan half onto each candy covered pretzel. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Me and my girlfriends do this annually. We baked over 250 Cake pops and candy decorated dipped Oreos. Made one heck of a mess! But they're great for gift baskets.