Christmas Cookies

Every year around this time, our house is filled with the smells of baking and cooking. My mom has always made these homemade sugar cookies for friends, service people (i.e. our mail lady, trash people...etc) and so this year I thought I would make some for a few people. Its a nice and homey gift and people usually always love cookies! How could you go wrong? Hehe. My favorite part is decorating them. Although very easy to decorate, its always nice to see the finished product.

Of course... As everyone knows... You start with making the dough. Duh. Lol. I used bell, christmas tree, and star cookie cut outs this year.

I am usually the one always taking the pictures, so I finally got one of me doing something... Mixing this particular dough is not as easy as one may think. There is no "liquid" to it...butter as it breaks down is the only thing that holds it together... Makes for good hand use!

Once baked, they are laid out to harden some more and to cool down before decorating.

Home made icing... Its great for these cookies. So simple, powder sugar and water. Just have to make it the right consistency. You can also color it if you want, but since we use sugar crystals to decorate, we just leave it white.

Once they all dry over night or so...just package and send off! They taste great and look very festive.
Oh the wonderful times of Christmas!!!