October Cookie Party

In the last few years, I have been trying to have cookie parties throughout the holidays. I think that baking and decorating cookies with friends and family is a great way to get together, plus everyone else can take home cookies and I'm not left with too many when I just want a few!
I have fond childhood memories of making Christmas sugar cookie cutouts with my Mom and siblings; and family friends occasionally. My Mom loved to make cookies and deliver plates to our neighbors and friends. I remember making so many at a time that we would freeze them to make them last longer!
A few years ago, I spent a year working in a Wegmans Bakery learning (among other things) a professional way to decorate cutout cookies. Since I had so much fun as a kid with sugar cookies, this part of the job never seemed like work. I quickly realized there are so many more occasions that one can make cutouts for and started buying cookie cutters after the season, when they were marked down - hearts for Valentine's Day; eggs for Easter; a pumpkin or apple and a leaf for fall; and did you know you could use an egg shape to make turkeys?

     

After my younger sister moved back to the area last year, I decided to have a girls' night cookie party with my sisters and some friends. It was just after Halloween, so we did all the fall cutouts I had, some chocolate chip cookies, and a first attempt at coconut macaroons - yum! Later that night, I found out that I was going to be an Auntie!

   Now my precious nephew is four months old. And this past Sunday I invited my family over to have another cookie party. Since we're still in October, my sister brought her ribbon cookie cutter so we could decorate pink ribbons in honor of breast cancer research.

jack-o-lanterns and spiderwebs for Halloween

We were more ambitious than we had time for...
We made sugar cookies, oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip cookies, and the dough for chocolate chip cookies. If you've never made the oatmeal cookies, you have to try them!

(Click the picture for the Ocean Spray recipe.)

        

There were no big announcements at the end of this night; and, after we got the kitchen cleaned up, I took out my Grandma's old cookie jar and filled it with the oatmeal cookies. 

Each 'house' got to take home cookies in little paper Halloween bags; and I put my sugar cookies on little Halloween plates.

I can't wait to share more cookie pictures and recipes with you for Thanksgiving and Christmas!