A Christmas Cookie Decorating Party

You have so much to do around the holidays. Why not turn something on your Christmas list-of-things-to-do into a party? Hosting a Christmas cookie decorating party is fun and festive and your guests will help you make the refreshments!

Send out invitations in plenty of time. Have your guests bring an apron and perhaps a fun and unusual cookie decorating item.  You provide the cookies, frosting, a variety of decorating items, and refreshments.

To keep the party focused on decorating, bake all the cookies ahead of time. Set up a decorating workspace on a large counter or kitchen table, with all decorating supplies set out and ready to go.

For added fun, award prizes for the most creative cookie, the funniest cookie, the prettiest cookie and the sweetest cookie.  Christmas cookie cutters or specialty decorating items make perfect prizes.

Making Christmas cookies is a favorite childhood memory for many people, so get nostalgic with your background music.  The Ultimate Christmas Music Collection is an eight-CD set of traditional holiday favorites you’ll remember from your childhood.

Buy large cookie tins and give one to each of your guests to choose their favorite cookies to take home with them.

Perfect-for-Decorating Sugar Cookie Recipe

• 4½ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1½ cups sugar
• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup Crisco
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 eggs

Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter, Crisco and sugar together. Add eggs, vanilla and dry ingredients. Roll onto lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on baking sheets. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cookie Frosting Recipe

• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound confectioners sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons milk

Cream butter with vanilla. Add salt and gradually add confectioners sugar, beating thoroughly after each addition. Stir in milk and beat until frosting is smooth and is of spreading consistency.

Gingerbread Men Cookie Recipe

• 5 to 5½ cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger  
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine 5 cups flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a large bowl; set aside. With an electric mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and egg until smooth. Add molasses and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture 1 cup at a time, blending until smooth. The dough should be quite firm. If not firm enough, add an additional ¼ to ½ cup flour until dough is firm but not crumbly.  Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Divide in half. Flatten into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 1 week. On a floured surface, roll each disk to 1/8 inch thick. Use gingerbread-man and gingerbread-woman cutters to make shapes. Transfer them to baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing cookies about 1 inch apart. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven until firm to the touch, about 12 minutes. Cool slightly, then transfer to a cooling rack. Decorate as desired.

Cookie Decorating Ideas

• Use Christmas cookie cutters – Santa shapes, reindeer, bells, holly, stars, Christmas trees, bulbs – to make holiday shapes from your cookies.
• Your grocery store baking aisle has lots of sprinkles, sparkling sugars, confetti and nonpareils to decorate beautiful and festive cookies. Use your imagination! Mix and match decorations in pretty patterns.
• For your gingerbread men and women, you can place silver or gold dragees around their necks for necklaces, squeeze on frosting for clothing, gloves and hats, and place mini M&Ms for buttons.
• Cookiedecorating.com has instructions for exquisite Christmas cookie ideas.
• IndiaTree.com has more ideas for beautiful Christmas and Hanukkah cookies.

Party Food
What food to serve at your cookie decorating party? Why, cookies, of course!

When you’re finished decorating, take your guests into a comfortable area away from the messy kitchen to enjoy some of your cookie creations with a beverage.

Wassail is fairly easy to make and delicious, especially around the holidays.  Offer wassail or a cold beverage, eggnog or punch, to enjoy with your confections.

Wassail

• 1 gallon apple cider
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 6-ounce can frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1 6-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1 tablespoon whole cloves
• 1 tablespoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• cinnamon sticks
• apricot brandy

Combine cider, brown sugar, orange juice and lemonade in a pan. Place cloves, allspice and 3 cinnamon sticks in a square of cheesecloth and tie it up in a bundle.  Add the spice bundle to cider, along with nutmeg. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove spice bundle and discard. Pour into mugs. Add apricot brandy to taste, about 1 ounce of brandy to 1 mug of wassail.