C is for Cookie

Gifting cookies and other baked goods during the holidays is nothing new. (Re-gifting someone else's fruitcake is nothing new either...) Cookies can be a fun, inexpensive, and easy present for friends, neighbors, coworkers, or apartment managers (who kindly answer your call at 12 am...). As our old friend, Cookie Monster explains in this catchy tune, everyone loves cookies!

[Nick likes to sing this song whenever I make cookies and he does a very accurate Cookie Monster voice.]

Making a bunch of different types of cookies by yourself can be daunting! So, I suggest holding a cookie exchange with your family or friends. Just don't invite the people you wanted to give cookies to in the first place. My mom has been hosting a cookie exchange every year for the last four years. Each person brings about three dozen of 1 or 2 types of cookies and we end up with about 20 varieties of cookies for each person to take home. 

This year, I made Gingerbread Snowflakes, a la Martha Stewart. The recipe is pretty easy and decorating is fun.

Then I joined other members of my family and some of my mom's friends to exchange the goods. We ended up coming home with a lot more cookies than we brought. Here's our cookies after Nick and I ate a few some.

This year, I was looking for a unique way to wrap up cookies without going the old cellophane-and-paper-plate route. I ended up buying these pots from IKEA for $1 each. (We have a lot of these around our house and I love the look versus traditional terra-cotta pots, for the same price.)

I put some of that crinkly paper in the bottom of each pot: 

Then I made stacks of 5 or 6 different cookies and placed them in the middle of each pot. (People don't really need a huge plate of cookies anyway, plus most of the people on our list are couples or single people). 

I put the snowflakes on top because they are the biggest and wedge nicely into the pots. I was originally going to use cellophane around the pots, but I accidentally bought a weird iridescent rolls that I didn't want to use.  Instead, I just wrapped each pot tightly with plastic wrap. This actually worked better because it required no scotch tape and definitely sealed the cookies in the pots. 

Next, I used some light blue ribbon to tie a simple bow around each package.

I added a dollar store snowflake to the top of each pot for some extra sparkle.

The pot idea works well because people can use them for plants after they've finished their cookies. Well that's the last of our easy-peasy Christmas gifts! Happy Baking (and yikes! I can't believe Christmas is this week)!