Christmas Baking Extravaganza

It's that time of year! As the holidays quickly approach, I've been planning my upcoming weekends and it's time to plan out a cookie date with my family.. Every holiday season my mom, sister and I have a cookie baking extravaganza. It goes on for days. We pretty much set aside a few Sundays in the month of December for cookie prep.

We have the system down. We spend the first day making all of the doughs. Last year we made sugar cookies, chocolate chip, snowballs, molasses, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter blowouts, peanut butter kiss, mint chocolate, and Cinnamon sugar to start. Then these all get frozen until ready to bake. Last year we decided to do double, sometimes triple batches of each cookie mix. We then divide them up and labeled freezer storage bags, so we know which is which later. The second day we get together is to make the Sugar Cookies. These are the most time consuming, but they last longer than the other cookies.

Last year, my Mom decided to make our annual event a bit more special. When we arrived at my sister's house, she had a surprise for us. She bought matching holiday aprons from Etsy seller momomadeit.

I love anything cheesy and over the top when it comes to holidays, so I loved it.  Good job, Mom. Once we were all decked out in our new attire it was time to cut, bake and decorate.

My Mom always gets stuck with the "boring" jobs. She rolled out all the dough, while my sister  and I got to do the fun parts and decorate.

 

Most of the cookie cutters have been around longer than I have, but a couple years ago my mom gave me mitten and snowflake cutters from Crate and Barrel. I think these are my two favorites.

My mom is partial to the nostalgic ones and loves the holly and the tree.

After lots of rolling dough, cutting out shapes, and sprinkling non perils, sprinkles and jimmies, it was time to get these guys in the oven.

We have a big cookie debate every single year on the length of cook time. I like mine kind of fluffy, so a bit undercooked, while my mom and sister like theirs crispy. Usually they ignore me and make them all crispy, but last year we compromised and made about a 3rd the way I like them.

These ones were perfection:

After lots of baking, we took some time to get a couple photos in front of the tree with our new aprons.

I can't wait for this years bake-a-thon.

What holiday traditions do you have with your family?