It's Christmas Eve and my cookies are ready just in time to set out for Santa tonight. And I tell you, he's got a lot of cookies to eat! Funny since at the beginning of December I was extremely worried I wouldn't have time to make barely any cookies. But somehow I managed to squeeze in several. Yay for cookies!

Gingerbread Macarons

Of course, I wanted to make macarons, my current favorite. Making macarons takes a quite a bit of time, but I divided it out between days. I made the shells on a Sunday (letting them dry before baking while grocery shopping), and then the filling later. The shells freeze nicely, in fact, the cookies freeze well which makes advanced baking a breeze.

Although I made gingerbread macarons last year, I tried a different recipe out this year. I think I liked these even better. I was more than ecstatic to see I had zero cracks in the shells. No joke, this fact made my day. Better yet, these were absolutely delicious. Huzzah!

Get the Recipe from It's Just Chicken

Peppermint Crinkles

I coordinated a cookie exchange at work this year, which I still hope to write about. I called it the Great Oracle Christmas Cookie Swap. For the swap, I made these peppermint crinkles. I hadn't made them before, but they turned out great (whew!). The batter seems super runny, but after refrigerating them, it works. Trust me. Another interesting thing with these cookies is that they only have 1/3 cup flour and include nutella. Beware, these are crazy chocolately.

Get the Recipe from Baker's Royale

Gingerbread Biscotti

This was the year of gingerbread I guess since I made the gingerbread macarons, pepparkakor which are gingerbread-like, and then these gingerbread biscottis. What's great about biscotti, is it's pretty easy. You make a log with the dough, bake it, slice it, and bake it again. Yes, biscotti is a twice baked cookie which makes them great for dipping in coffee or tea. I dipped mine in Trader Joe's Peppermint tea. Yum!

Get the Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Pepparkakor

No Christmas passes without making Pepparkakor. I have to carry on the tradition from my Grandma Norma who always made these. They are a Swedish cookie, and have lots of delicious spices like cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. This time I added a tad of cardamon and allspice. These are similar to gingerbread cookies, but thinner and crispier.

Recipe is a secret! (If you're nice, maybe I'll share someday!)

Krum Kager

This is another Grandma Norma cookie. For the longest time my family said these were Swedish cookies only to learn that they are actually Norwegian. Still they are Scandinavian, so we're covered. These are like a wafer-thin butter cookie that is made with a cookie iron and then rolled - sort of like a waffle cookie! They are pesky cookies since they are delicate and break easily, but they are so pretty. I didn't make the dough, my mom did that, but I did the cookie creation - pressing, rolling, and sugar sprinkles.

Another Handed down recipe, but this one is pretty similar from Recipes from Grandma.

Spritz

This is a John O'Neill favorite. He literally took the tin after dinner and started eating them. I'm not going to lie, but it was quite the battle with the cookie press. My mom had two cookie presses, and I killed the first part. Then the other one was battery operated and just worked poorly. But I conquered and managed to make these gems. Normally, I like to use green sprinkles, but we only had the colorful ones so just imagine they are ornaments on the trees.

Get the recipe below! You're welcome.

Spritz Recipe

From the Kitchen of Grandma Norma, Jan O'Neill, and now Heather Brown.

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Colored Sprinkles - Red & Green for Christmas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees/

Cream butter, add sugar and cream thoroughly. Add extract, egg, and then flour. We recommend refrigerating this for 2-3 hours.

Push dough into cookie press, and then press onto a greased baking sheet. Shake on sprinkles before baking. Bake 7-10 minutes in 350 degree oven (Note: watch the temperate, the original recipe called for 400 but we found that too hot and burning the edges).

Let cool 1-2 minutes, and then remove from pan. Let cool and enjoy!