Christmas Cookies

Baking with a Toddler is no small feat... but the plan for yesterday was to make Christmas cookies, and make cookies we did. Now, I will be the first to admit - I just love the 99 cent soft cookies that you can buy at the grocery store, but I think holiday traditions are important and baking Christmas cookies is a fun one. What is a little mess in the kitchen?

My sister-in-law often hosts a Christmas cookie party at her house - everyone has to bring their pre-made dough (you have to make it a day ahead anyway so that it has time to "set" in the fridge). If you do one of these parties - tell everyone to make sure they know the oven temp and time for their dough - and be prepared with plenty of parchment paper and either paper plates/wrap or cookie tins for when everyone leaves! Anyway - my sister-in-law makes up bowls of colored frosting, plus colored frosting tubes, paintbrushes, all the tiny cookie decorations, etc. ahead of time, plus bakes her dough - when everyone arrives with the kids - there are cookies all ready to be decorated spread out. Some adults supervise the decorating table, other adults/kids help roll out more cookie dough and cut more cookies - my sister-in-law mans the oven! Oh - and all the kids typically get a Santa hat and an apron to wear! Can you see the apron Little Boy is wearing? My sister-in-law made it for him this fall - she is a real pro when it comes to making kid's aprons! At the end of the party everyone gets a large assortment of different cookies, all VERY creatively decorated by the kids, to take home!

So - the other day I sent my DH off to the store with a shopping list (including molasses, but he came home a bit uncertain about where to get molasses over here!). Well, after giving it a bit of thought I realized that the KitchenAid with the K hook is in Canada so making a stiff dough would be a challenge. Plan B: store bought cookie dough, which worked just fine, and bless his heart - he also got the pre-made lemon icing plus a shaker container of confetti that amused Little Boy to no end. Can we all say major sugar rush and confetti all over the floor? LOL!

The end results of our efforts... In the forground you might be able to see the 4 little spread knives that I bought at Cosco and brought over here - they have a Santa, snowman, Christmas tree and nutcracker on them - we used these knives to spread the frosting, which my son just loved - he couldn't make up his mind which one to use so kept switching from one to another! We did make a few Christmas trees and stars, but my very favorite cookie cutters are the hearts and flowers - easy to pop out and you can cut alot from 1 rolling of the dough - the less you handle the dough the better the taste...

Maybe not the prettiest cookies, but Little Boy sure is PROUD of them! And they sure do taste good (especially for breakfast... sshhh). Yup, I see Christmas cookies being a long-standing holiday tradition.