Cookie Exchange

 

Photos by Dawn Walker

My niece hosted a Christmas cookie exchange last year and has announced she's going to do it again this year! We had a lot of fun putting ours together last year, so I'm looking forward to seeing how we'll top it.

My Peanut Butter Cookies, photo by Dawn

My Wedding Cookies, photo by Dawn 

Both recipes were taken from my tried and true Betty Crocker cookbook, a wedding present of over 30 years ago from my life-long best-friend Lauri. I can't tell you how many recipes from this one book I've used through the years.

My daughter Dawn photographed the cookies and created recipe cards which we shared with the group.

We packaged them up in Christmasy goodie bags and attached award-type ribbons (see first photo) I bought on sale (super cheap) at Michael's.

 

It was well-worth the extra effort because they were a hit! We enjoyed everyone's cookies just as much (the home-made ones, anyway...it never occurred to me people would actually use store-bought).

This time my niece and I talked about including cupcakes and things like pumpkin bread. I like that idea because, really, there were tons of cookies and it would have been nice to mix it up a bit with other goodies (not a complaint, just an idea). And with everyone watching their waistlines (me, not so much, but it's coming), maybe we can even find a good Weight Watcher's recipe and provide the points.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!