Sugar cookies with really good icing.

I love these, though I've never heard them called Buckeyes before. We just refer to them as Peanut Butter Balls.

I also love cookies. The best job that I ever had in college was working at a bakery - where all that was sold was cookies (16 kinds), muffins, scotcheroos and kringla.

My sister and I are going to be baking 12 dozen cookies that she needs for some church event. We plan on making cookies shaped like candy canes - two types of dough twisted together, pinwheels and fudge. I love fudge.

Also a fun easy recipe that I got from a friend's mom involves those long pretzel sticks, melted white almond bark, smashed up candy canes and melted chocolate bark. You dip the pretzels about 2/3 of the way into the almond bark, then roll them into the smashed candy canes and drizzle with the melted chocolate.

The Christmas cookies that I grew up with were called Christmas Card Cookies. I don't have the recipe handy, but they have ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and some other spices. They're similar to a gingerbread cookie, but the taste is a bit different. Then we'd ice them and my mom is a cookie decorating queen.

Mmmmmmmm.........DoBiz........................

How could I forget about Buckeyes? I was lucky if the peanut butter mix even made it to the chocolate stage!

I like sugar cookies, but not with icing. I try dying the dough itself, and using melted chocolate (as in candy chocolate) to decorate them. I did some awesome autumn leaves for a fund raiser 2 months ago, but I'm going to try snowflakes with white chocolate tomorrow.

One good thing about decorating sugar cookies, if they look awful, it's easy to get rid of the evidence! ;)

My mom used to always make the peanut butter blossom cookies - those are the peanut butter cookies with a hershey kiss smashed in to them. She hasn't made them this christmas and I don't have time right now since I'm trying to get my thesis done. Hmmm....wonder if i can start leaving hints around the house that I'd love some of those cookies.

The tradition in my house was mom would start to make the cookie dough for sugar cookies and for the peanut blossoms. While she did that we kids would unwrap a few bags of kisses getting them ready for the cookies. Of course, between us kids (and dad) a bag of kisses probably got eaten while we were unwrapping them.

The thing about my mom's peanut blossoms - she puts something in her recipe that makes them taste different then any other I've eaten. I dont' know if it's because she rolls the dough in sugar before she bakes or what.

Date Balls, fudge, and divinity.
I also must admit that I love the sugar cookies that you buy in the roll with the little holiday pictures on them (reindeer and Frosty the Snowman)!!!

I LURVE Gingerbread.

My mom makes these cookies called "Ginger Cremes." Basically they look like if you were to mash gingerbread mix into little balls and bake them. So there is no snap in the cookie. And then she frosts the tops and we dip them in sprinkles.

Good stuff.

Wonderful holiday traditions
 

Hi, Honey.
I our homes at the holidays, one can always find

Pecan Tassies (best thing EVER)
Divinity with freshly cracked pecans
Lemon Bars

A recent addition is Elvin (also called Elvish) shortbread (Two words...OH MY!)

Grandmother's Nanapudding
Mother's Chess Pie

I couldn't believe it, but MANY of my students had not heard of chess pie! One of my students made chess pies for the whole class! :)

Happiness,
Silver

What's Chess Pie?

they used to make these at the dining halls every now and thena t school. it was always an exciting day when they did!

Oh dear! Bless your heart!
Full-sized chess pies are a tradition in many southern homes during the holidays. Made in small tarts for individual servings, chess pies are also appropriate for summer outings. Chess pies are, in some ways, like pies made out of the filling for a pecan pie. However, the chess is a rich, bright yellow color and is made mainly from eggs and LOTS of sugar. It has a VERY thin, light crust where the top of the confection cooks to a crispy layer.
You might think of it as a cross between a custard pie and the filling for a pecan pie.
Yum!
Silver

Well, you could either use some of these receipes and make them yourself...;) Or maybe some of the nice GCers on here would make you some if you asked nicely :D

Anyways, back on topic:
These aren't necessarily "Christmas cookies", but I've made two double batches in the past week and they are SOOOO good and so easy to make.

Banana Butterscotch Drops
3 medium ripe bananas
1 box yellow cake mix (the author of the cookbook I got this from recommends Betty Crocker Super Moist, but any yellow cake mix will work)
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup butterscotch morsels

Take the bananas and mash them using a hand mixer for about 1 minute. Add the cake mix to the bananas and with the mixer, mix for another 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is a little creamy. Add the oats and the butterscotch chips using a wooden spoon. Using a measured teaspoon (according to them :D), place on a cookie sheet and bake for 14-15 minutes (mine usually cook about 20 minutes) at 350 degrees F or until the bottoms are golden brown. They come out of the over not looking completely done, but they firm up as they cool, and everyone loves the smell of them - I took them to a chapter Christmas party this year and the women LOVED them!

Other staples that I make with my grandma are Swedish icebox cookies, Snowballs, Almond Cresents (as long as we remember to put enough butter in them! :o), Chocolate chip, and I can't remember the others right now. Most years, I spend two or three days with my grandma at her house baking cookies! :)

If I find any other receipes, I'll share them here! :)

Yesterday I ate lots of cookies and pastries at a Christmas party. My favorite were the gingerbread man cookie. It was an inch tall gingerbread man. I wanted to eat more, but they ran out of them.

I *heart* Moravian Spice Cookies.

Also fudge.

Yes, that is why my son got to eat a couple of the cookies that he "created" tonight! We ice them, and they got really creative this year and made frosting ornaments on the Christmas trees instead of just using sprinkles. My son made one that had huge globs of every color frosting AND two kinds of sprinkles. He proudly held it up and said "This is the most decorated tree out of all of them!". My daughter said "Yeah, it sure is" in a very funny tone of voice. He got to eat that one!

Lemon spritz (cookie gun) and Sour milk cookies done... so many more to go! I didn't get nearly as much done today as I'd hoped. Then again, the kids were helping all along the way. We had fun, but it does slow things down again as they each have to have a turn at cracking an egg, measuring an ingredient, etc.

Dee