Christmas cookie Day is one of our favorite days in the whole Christmas season! It's a day we literally dedicate to baking all-day-long! The oven warms up in the morning and stays on until late in the afternoon. Everyone is surveyed to find out what cookies they would like to bake that year. We have a few staples that are must-haves each year regardless of what everyone picks. Those would be things like jelly cookies or puppy chow (which actually requires no baking but it's a sweet so we count it.)
We love a good cookie. They're especially helpful during a blood sugar drop. :) These cookies are the kind that half of one would be satisfying leaving you the other half to enjoy another time.
I almost made a BIG mistake making our M&M cookies. I didn't realize that they make peanut butter MINI M&M's. When I was at Target last week I grabbed a bag of festive red and green mini M&M's for our cookies and didn't think a thought about them. Only AFTER I mixed in the full bag of chocolate candies did Rutledge announce, "Wait! These have PEANUT BUTTER!" My sweet Sadie has a peanut allergy and that meant the festive red and green cookies were now off limits. Sad day! I promptly promised to bake regular mini M&M cookies with her on another day. Praise the Lord we avoided that disaster, beyond that, it was a very successful day! Copious amounts of sugar were used in various forms from granulated, brown, powdered, and even frosting - if there was a time of year to enjoy the treats, this is it!
As we surveyed the fruits of our labor all day we began to think of who we could share the treats with. We bagged them up in the cutest little bags I found at Hobby Lobby and set off delivering them to friends and family right away!
Homeschool wise, it was a very effective practice in using measurement tools, reading measurements, converting measurements, etc. It was a great exercise in communication (which admittedly wasn't always great- but truly, not bad either) and teamwork. The kids read Christmas books between oven rotations and we made a whole happy day of it.
In the past, when my crew couldn't be as hands on for various reasons, I created a Christmas Cookie Day resource to add a little intentionality to our day. It includes:
If you're curious what we baked, here are the various recipes we use and I highly recommend them.
