Christmas Cookies!

We have had a bit of a slow start with all of our Christmas fun this year. So I was really excited to kick off our vacation with our first ever, Christmas cookie decorating party!

Enjoy the pictures!

Lets just say, when my husband saw this, he thought I was a little nuts. :) I wanted everyone to have their own set of toppings. Plus for the kids, it was great, because, unlike the fistfuls they could grab in a shared bowl, they could only grab a little pinch at a time. There were 19 of us and I made 20 cups total. Never hurts to have a back up. :) I may have been a little excited about the options. :)

We moved furniture around and set up the table. My favorite part. :) 

Everyone got nine toppings to sprinkle on top. I had green, blue, brown and white frosting. Plus (not pictured) I had purple and red icing in squeeze bottles. 

Everyone had wide popsicle sticks to spread the frosting on. Although I think next year I would just do the icing in the bottles. Plus I caught a few kids just licking frosting on the popsicle sticks. :) I am ignoring the fact that they probably double dipped! :) 

I had tooth picks for those creative adventures. They helped spread in the icing. 

Here are all of the sugar cookies, GLUTEN-FREE too! I used two brands because the store ran out of Pamela's Sugar cookie mix. So I grabbed Betty Crocker gluten-free sugar cookie mix. And I have to say that I really enjoyed the Betty Crocker mix. Maybe it was the vanilla I added. 

Note: Pamela's mix didn't spread in the oven but the Betty Crocker recipe did. 

They were actually pretty easy to cut out, I was a little nervous working with the gluten-free dough.

After I made a batch of dough, I split it into two balls and semi-flattened it out, covered it in wax paper and put it in the fridge, (or the freezer for a quick solution). The warmer the dough got the more difficult it became to get shapes onto the cookie sheet. Once all of my dough was cold I had a nice system of cutting shapes and cooking batches and cooling etc....

For someone who rarely bakes this was quite the task! The kids enjoyed eating the cookies that broke along the way. :)

Our spread of snacks. And the cookies ready for decorating! 

My daughters creation. :) 

The aftermath. My son taking a hot chocolate break. 

My favorite cookie decoration. :) I really liked having the squeeze bottles for creating designs.

More creations. It was a lot of fun to have our neighbors, friends and family join us! 

The kids even watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas! :) 

I feel like the holiday fun has officially started!