Holiday Cookies on a Holiday Budget

My friends and I started a tradition while in our senior year of High School. We thought it would be fun to bake cookies for our classmates and give them each a Christmas 'goodie bag.' It turned out to be so much fun, we've been make cookies together ever since!

Basically, we have created a girls-only cookie swap: but we help each other with the work! Every year we rotate which kitchen will host the swap and then we each choose one cookie to bake on Cookie Day. We have expanded our group over the years, so we have more cookies each year. The deal is you have to buy the ingredients for your cookie, the host kitchen provides all standard equipment (you are responsible for your own specialty items!), and you must make more than one batch. At the end of the day all the cookies are divided according to family size and we each end up with an several dozen assorted cookies!

Yes, you are spending the day in the kitchen - but you're not alone and it is never quiet! We play Christmas carols, make hot chocolate and catch up on everything going on in each other's lives. All while the amazing smells of sugar and cinnamon, nutmeg and gingerbread, icing and chocolate waft around us! It is divine!

The breakdown is simple: Choose a day that works for everyone (our day is a Saturday in the middle of December). Then you have a choice: Kids? They can hang out with dad that day (or all the kids and dad can get together for football in the park, etc). No kids? Put the husbands in the family room with "man-movies" or video games, or whatever they are into, ask them to stay put and promise them they can be taste-testers - you will have very willing helpers in this area, I promise!

Next, divide your kitchen space according to cookie and baker. Each person gets a plot of kitchen real estate to create their culinary Christmas masterpieces. Then take turns with the oven. Most cookies bake at the same temperature, so it's easy tobake to kinds at once - just keep an eye on those browning edges!

Then you come to the cooling, tasting, dividing and disposal. Easy as pie. Cool the cookies together; no need to separate them after they've baked. Follow this by removing any broken or stray cookies from the pile for the husbands waiting patiently for their dessert. Then divide by family size (10 cookies for a family of two, two dozen for a family of four?) and either place in zip-top plastic bags, or use colored plastic wrap and holiday ribbon to create small cookie bundles for each family member.

Finally, clean up. Enlist your dishwasher to do the work while you and your friends join your husbands for hot chocolate. Or take turns on the clean-up and cookie dividing. When your with friends the work doesn't feel like work!

A good tip to remember is you don't need a lot of space, just an organized leader! And you can be creative, in expensive and crafty to make it all go a bit further. The best idea of all is to make several copies of your recipe to send home with your friends or include with your cookie gifts.

My friends and I have been doing this for years and each year it gets bigger and better. On our agenda this year? Cookies by day - a good old fashioned, all-girls sleep-over that night! Just like high school!