There’s never a bad time to enjoy a cookie. What is YOUR favorite kind of cookie? Do you like a warm classic gooey chocolate chip or buttery frosted sugar cookie? How about a chocolatey crinkle cookie or soft snickerdoodle? Maybe your favorite is a crispy flavorful gingersnap or stoic shortbread? Or a smooth or chunky peanut butter with an added chocolate kiss or a soft oatmeal raisin? So many cookie varieties to sample and share. Christmas is always a great time to host a cookie swap or bake off and make up assortments to gift to neighbors and friends or just eat with your company or family.
Do you have any special family cookie recipes? Do you have any family traditions around cookies? There’s something magical about sharing our favorite childhood memories and traditions with our own children. One of my favorite memories with cookies is during the Christmas holidays when Mom would bring out her special vintage metal cookie cutters with green and red wooden handles. These special cutters came in six shapes – Christmas tree, Santa with a gift sack over his shoulder, star, heart, Christmas bell and reindeer. All eight kids and mom would make up a batch of sugar cookies and buttercream frosting and cut, bake and frost away! What a glorious delicious mess! Memories!
Several years ago I found the same vintage cookie cutters in a Gooseberry Patch catalog and had to get them – so my kids could enjoy the same memories of making cookie cutter cookies at Christmas time. Passing on traditions is one way we can keep our family memories and stories and loved ones alive. Share a cookie and a cookie story with your loved ones today!
Here are some of my favorite cookie stories I’ve shared over the years in a variety of settings – from the comfort of my couch snuggled up with one of my own, to preschool classroom and even in college. Pick a book, pick a cookie, invite a buddy and enjoy a shared story and a sweet.
Christmas Cookie Books
Christmas and cookies go together as much as childhood and cookies. We can’t have a Christmas without some cookies! Here are some of our favorite Christmas cookie books. If you’re looking for a touch of seafood fare in your holiday, along with all those sweet cookies, try Santa’s Sick of Cookies. If you want to experience some culture and travel around the world while you consider or try some new cookie versions, we recommend A World of Cookies for Santa. You could literally have this book for months or years and still reference it! Now that we’ve got Santa out of the way, how about some cookies for the tree? Tough Cookie learns that not all cookies are sweet and meant for eating. If you like to hang homemade gingerbread ornaments on your tree, you’re going to appreciate this book. And last but not least, Christmas Cookies – Bite-Sized Holiday Lessons by Amy Rosenthal because we can all use a reminder of proper etiquette before all our family holiday gatherings.
Do you have a favorite Christmas cookie book or recipe? Feel free to share in the comments!
Santa’s Sick of Cookies (An Eastern Shore Christmas Tale)
(ages 5-8) Add a different twist and a little humor set to rhyme to the cookies for Santa concept. Seriously can you imagine all the cookies Santa must get?
A World of Cookies for Santa – Follow Santa’s Tasty Trip Around the World
(ages 4-9) Mixing your study of world geography with a little cookies and culture has never been sweeter! Get out your map and your kitchen mixer and make up a batch of cookies! What country’s cookies will you want to try first? And yes – this book includes recipes!
Christmas Cookies (Bite-Size Holiday Lessons)
(ages 4-8) This delightful book will not only cause salivating and a desire to make and eat cookies, but also has some great etiquette advice. We all want to teach our children good manners and while setting a great example is always the best way, this precious book presents the concepts in a sweet and colorful way just in time for holiday gatherings. If your familiar with Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s original, Cookies (Bite-Size Life Lessons), this Christmas version is just as sweet and clever.
Tough Cookie – A Christmas Story
(ages 4-7) A clever twist on The Gingerbread Man with some festive recipes at the end for helping to decorate your Christmas tree! This book is certain to entertain and provide an extended activity in the kitchen for a not-so-sweet cookie option.A Sing-along Cookie Book
If you’d like an interactive book for a group perfect for learning everyone’s names, or for use learning with objects or pictures, this classic sing-along Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? will get everyone smiling and singing!
Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?
(ages 2-6) You really can’t just read this book. You won’t be able to help but chant or sing to the sing-along as you take turns accusing different friends or family members of taking the cookies!And some favorites and classics
And more of our favorite cookie books! We’ve all grown to love our favorite cookie mouse and Laura Numeroff has written not one, but two cookie books with him, and they are both great and worthy of being in any home library. I remember one professor in my elementary education program had taken two copies of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and cut it so each page was a stand alone. As a class we had to put the book back together in order, by paying attention to the cause and effect of each action. So many great lessons to bounce off this book or just enjoy it for the adorable adventure it is.
Enjoy another classic with Milk and Cookies by Frank Asch. Then a couple newer ones with Mr. Cookie Baker – a perfect launch into any lesson or activity on business, shapes, colors, sizes, art/decoration – and just for fun or to add some humor to your farm unit, The Cow Loves Cookies. We hope you enjoy these cookie books as much as we do. Feel free to share some of your favorites in comments!
Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons
(ages 2-6) I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love cookies! It’s such a treat to see a child’s perspective as they make sense of common words through definitions of cookies. Which definition do you like the best? What is your favorite kind? No cookie book would be complete without a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe at the end. Grab a cookie, grab a friend, and grab this cookie book!
The Best Mouse Cookie
(ages 1-3) Introduce your toddlers to our favorite cookie mouse with this sweet and simple text available in board book format too. In just a few short words mouse deals with hard work, disaster and handling lots of cookies.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
(ages 1-6) Read as everyone’s favorite cookie mouse teaches cause and effect throughout his adventures in this timeless cautionary tale.
Mr. Cookie Baker
(ages 1-4) This simple book available in board book style for even the youngest of readers introduces many concepts! Get your taste buds salivating as Mr. Cookie Baker sets in motion the process of making cookies for his bakery. This book touches on everything from counting, colors, shapes, art, kitchen safety and even subtly entrepreneurship and economics. Start your kids young and use this book to launch many units for a deeper dive. And be sure to make up a batch of cookies when you’re done reading!
Milk and Cookies
(ages 2-6) When a sleepover to grandma’s house gets a little scary for Baby Bear, it’s nothing a little milk and cookies can’t fix. Sit down with your littles and talk about their fears with something sweet. Enjoy this classic originally published in 1982.
The Cow Loves Cookies
(ages 2-8) All the animals on Farmer’s farm eat what you’d expect . . . except the cow. The cow loves cookies! Go through feeding all the animals of the farm set to a catchy rhyme. You’ll have to read to the end to see if there may be one more animal with an interesting palate . . . what do you think the duck likes?All this talk about cookies is making me hungry! Moments in the kitchen making cookies are some of our best childhood memories. Make some cookies and memories today with your family!
vintage cookie cutters reopen the magic of Christmas past into Christmas present
Grandma Lorraine’s Farm House Cookies – ENJOY!
- 1 c shortening or margarine
- 2 c sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 c sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp soda
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 4 1/2 c flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 c nuts or raisins (optional)
Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time continuing to beat. Add sour cream and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Roll on floured canvas fairly thick (½ inch) Cut with large round cutter and place on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with chopped nuts or raisins. Bake at 350℉ for 10-18 min or until done. Grandma Lorraine made these cookies large, soft and thick with raisins. You can also roll them thinner and bake for less time. We like to make the thinner version without the optional nuts or raisins and frost with buttercream frosting. YUM!
Hand sign for cookie:
Simply put your left hand flat with palm up (like rolled out cookie dough) then pretend you are holding a cookie cutter in your right hand and press your finger tips into your left palm 2x.
Cookie Monster Song from Sesame Street:
(see if you can find it on YouTube and sing along with your little one. Jim Henson's muppets have a character and magic they bring to the table.)
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!
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