What the world needs now...

...is cookies. Lots and lots of them. Because it's Christmas and that means you can eat anything you want without repercussion!

(Just go with it. It will make you happy, I promise.)

Sunday I spent the day baking with four of the nicest ladies you'll meet. This baking tradition of ours started in 2003 when my friend Andrea and I got inspired and baked a ton of Christmas cookies at her mom's house. Well, Andrea moved to Philly (boo), but her mom Linda, our friend Joanna, and two of Andrea's friends, Jackie and Colette, joined me in her absence, and we've been getting together to bake, chat, laugh and eat every December since 2006. Unfortunately (for us), Jackie moved to Japan two years ago, so this year another friend, Willa, joined us.

Every year we show up at Linda's house and make a huge mess. We all make 2-3 kinds of cookies, split everything up, and then leave with more cookies than one person should ever feel comfortable having in their home.

This year we made 15 types of cookies in a record-breaking four hours:

Peanut Butter Blossoms
Snickers Cookies
Haystacks
Mexican Wedding Cakes (also known as Russian Tea Cakes...at least by me)
Thin Mints
Pretzel Bark
Double Chocolate Biscotti
Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti
Molasses Sugar Cookies
Cranberry Turtle Bars
Hello Dolly
Flake Cookies
Marshmallow Christmas Wreaths
Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Gingersnaps

And now they are all piled on my dining room table. I have plans to give them away, but there's something kind of wonderful about coming home to a cookie buffet...

No, that is not a picture of my personal cookie buffet. That is Linda's table before we split things up, although at that point we weren't done so there were more cookies in the kitchen. And on her deck, which conveniently doubles as a refrigerator/cooling rack.

Here's hoping my dear co-founder will be back in Minnesota next year and we'll be making this huge mess at her house!