HOLIDAY COOKIES
- Libby K. Hanaway
- Dec 11, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 16
Hello! We will keep this post short and SWEET because no one has time for non-essentials this week and next. We are FOCUSING! We are COMPLETING! We are ENJOYING!
In last week’s post I mentioned we had cookie exchange coming up, which took place this past Saturday. Rick knew one half of the hosting couple and I knew neither. And neither of us really knew where we were going, especially since the invitation cautioned that drivers would probably lose cell coverage on their way up (up, up, up) into the foothills. With every road twist, rocky outcrop, and new flake of falling snow, we kept saying, “Wow, people just … you know … LIVE up here” — where, it would seem, one would need an all-terrain vehicle plus snowshoes just to get a quart of milk, much less navigate a daily commute into downtown Denver.
After we arrived and triple-checked the invitation for time and place, we marched down the snowy driveway to a sleek modern home where we were greeted by three sleek German Shorthaired Pointers and our two much-younger, triathalon-y hosts. A quick glance around told us this was not your/our grandma’s cookie exchange. Which was fine!
But hold on, wait a minute … yes it actually was your/our grandma's cookie exchange because right there in the middle of the dining table was a silver oval platter filled with green cornflake wreaths, the old annual Christmastime sign of friendly, familiar, sticky, marshmallow-y delight.
Raise your hand if you have ever made or eaten a cornflake wreath (🙋♀️🙋♂️). If your hand is up, chances are high that you are over fifty and from the Midwest. Cornflake wreaths (CFWs) are a bright green relic from the 70s — think of a wreath-shaped Rice Krispie Treat but with cornflakes, green food dye, and cinnamon red hots for the berries. A very gooey, sticky business, but worth the effort to both make and eat. My mom made them, Rick’s mom still makes them (and mails them to us each December), and apparently someone at this sleek party knew the nostalgic importance of cornflake wreaths, too. We looked around and identified the CFW-maker, then introduced ourselves by simply saying, "Cornflake wreaths!" Then Rick, Amy, and I started in on a long conversation rooted in our shared practical Midwestern-ness. It did not matter that she recently spent two weeks backpacking in Patagonia and was leading a life of seemingly nonstop travel and adventure — we spoke the same Christmas cookie language and that was all that really mattered.
Cookies actually ARE a language, and there is no better time to speak it than during the winter holiday season. They say effort, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, mess, time, generosity, and tradition. [They do not say restriction and restraint]. There are years we can pull them off in our own kitchens and there are years when Safeway is our saving grace. Regardless, holiday cookies — from Hanukkah's cinnamon-packed rugelach to Christmas's sugar cookies shaped like Santa — are a bonding element.
Holiday cookies bond us through shared memory (like Saturday's CFWs) and they bond as plated tokens of affection shared each December between friends, family, and neighbors. And, of course, they provide a very important, mysterious bonding exchange between kids and Santa Claus on Christmas Eve (an exchange that should also include oatmeal and carrots for the reindeer). Oh look, we say big-eyed in the morning, there are just a few crumbs left on the plate — he really came!
In my house growing up, our Christmas cookie rotation included Snowballs (from the margarine era, see below), CFWs, and sugar cookies shaped from vintage hard red plastic molds in various Christmas-themed shapes. Santa had raisins cut in half for his squinted smiling eyes and red-colored sugar and royal icing for everything else. One of my sisters found replicas of the old cookie cutters and now we all have our own vintage Santa and tree.
Rick's mom, Judy, still makes a full buffet of cookies for friends and neighbors, and sends a box our way each year. It will have CFWs (mostly for Rick), homemade caramels for both of us, and Cream Wafers (mostly for me). Judy's Cream Wafers are the stuff of air, cream, and magic; she has shared her recipe with me and my sisters, but none of us can come close to her level, so we stopped trying. I just eagerly await her box, and then set aside a dozen for the freezer. I'll dole them out to myself, one each month for the following year; it feels like I am brazenly cheating the calendar whenever I pull one out in July.
In our own family, we used to make regular and later gluten-free cut-out sugar cookies (decorating them with all the kids at our annual holiday work party/chili-fest — funny, messy + chaotic; with the three older girls next door — sweet + calm, with E + C trying to casually impress them; and with just ourselves — a variable mix of messy, calm + chaotic, depending on the year). We also made gf chocolate crinkles and I still usually try a random new-to-me recipe like peanut butter buckeyes just to keep things interesting.
The rolled-out sugar cookies are a few steps beyond my usual chocolate chip / lemon bar / monster cookie routine, but once or twice a year I was up for the effort. I thought those days of dough scraps, jars of colored sugar crystals, tinted frosting, mini-chocolate chips, and peppermint bits were maybe behind us for now, but both girls have asked for a cookie-making afternoon when we're all together next next week. How can I refuse? (I think we will try this recipe from a site that is reliably good for the gf cooking/baking life 💯).
Rick has been traveling since Monday, so it's mainly been left to me to snack on the cookie exchange cookies all week. We had a few extra of the Christmas Monster Cookies we made/brought to the party (pretty good/would tweak in the future); they have lots of oatmeal, so they have seemed breakfast-friendly. The Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies have lots of cayenne — small bites only; the Chocolate Shortbread is so simple and so good; the giant Everything Cookies are over-the-top in a delicious, also small-bites way; and the decorated Sugar Cookies make me think of my childhood and my girls' childhood ... and, it seems, their young adulthood in about two weeks ✨.
It's fun to now have my very own smorgasbord of festive holiday cookies, but the best part of Saturday's cookie party — aside from the CFWs, of course — was when we all spotted a Fed Ex driver carefully making her way down the driveway with a lululemon package in hand. The door opened wide for her, and she was invited inside to help herself to whatever looked good on the table. Everybody yelled "Hi!" as she stepped into the warmth and briefly studied the table with a smile. Then off she went with a wave and a few cookies in hand, very much like her red-suited delivery counterpart in the upcoming quiet, dark hours before Christmas Day. Cookies say hi, thanks, and keep going!
🍪 🎅🏽 🍪
EXTRA GOOD
ALSO LINKED THROUGH THE EXTRA GOOD PAGE HERE
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2025
1._GOOD FOOD: Every holiday season, the New York Times Cooking's Cookie Week rolls around. Each year it offers readers/bakers seven fairly ambitious cookie recipes; most years I admire the concepts but do not bake them because I am a simple human being. If I were to be feeling ambitious, this year, I'd be tempted to make the Vietnamese Coffee Swirl Brownies and/or the Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies and maybe even the Coconut Cake Snowballs. Have you ever made cookies from this annual NYT Cooking series? How did they turn out??
2._GOOD HELP: I love this civic twist on a traditional cookie exchange 😀. This upcoming Saturday, one of our neighboring towns is hosting their First Annual Cookie Crawl, whereby participants pay $10 for a box they can fill with homemade cookies picked up in various local downtown businesses. It's like a pub crawl but accessible to all ages with zero risk of a hangover! 50% of the proceeds go to "charity" (undefined, but I trust them) and 50% goes to "future community fun" (again undefined / again trust). This event supports local business while giving back while loading community members up with holiday cookies, all for a mere $10. Easily adapted to Main Streets everywhere. Win-win-win!
3._GOOD MUSIC: We had a heckuva day last Saturday. We started in the morning at Logan's Christmas Shoppe mentioned last week, then zipped home for lunch and to collect our cookies, then headed up into the foothills for our CFW cookie exchange, then back down to the flatlands in the early evening to help C change a headlight bulb and "see" Sweet Pea the Cat, who was hidden — as usual — like a loaf of bread under C's comforter, and THEN drove across town for a late dinner with our niece at Stanley Beer Hall (located in Stanley Marketplace, which is a very fun spot!).
On the dark drive home from our long, full day, I suddenly turned the radio up louder and clicked on my Shazam app. How had I missed this Ed Sheeran/Elton John Christmas song from 2021? It was the perfect exclamation point to a very Christmas-y day. You probably already know it, but in case there are any other Merry Christmas newcomers, here you go!
SEE YOU HERE NEXT TIME FOR ANOTHER BATCH OF GOOD
😀
Oh my gosh. I've not had cornflake wreaths (I know, the horror!), but you did inspire me to start my holiday cookie list with no bake chocolate peanut butter cookies. Those were DEFINITELY a favorite in our house. Merry Christmas you guys! :)