Cookie Exchange 2011

Ellen, Eileen, Prudy

Last night was our famous Christmas Cookie Exchange. Eileen and Prudy came over to my house for dinner and we had a butternut squash lasagna and citrus salad. We first enjoyed some wine and oohed and aahed over all the cookies, and more importantly, the containers and little presents we put in along with the cookies. We spend a lot of time admiring each others containers and themes.

We are big into the presentation. This all began back in the day because Eileen felt her cookies weren't as good as Prudy's and mine, so she started putting her cookies into cute containers and adding little gifties. Now the containers are as important as the cookies! This year Eileen used a French Chocolat market bag, Prudy used beautiful wooden bowls she bought on her Vermont vacation, and I used a big blue flower pot.

After dinner, we have a sampling of all our cookies. This year Prudy made rugelach, a chocolate cookie with nutella (new this year), and a praline topped cookie. Eileen made chocolate caramel (a repeat that Julia requested!), a ginger cookie, and a lemon wafer with frosting. I made chocolate shortbread hearts, vanilla pretzels, and apricot bowties. Prudy brought a few extra raspberry thumbprints for dessert.

These are Eileen's caramel topped chocolate cookies that Julia requested. The presentation in that little box with the Christmas paper is excellent!

Prudy put her cookies in these cute peppermint bags.

And these are my containers, packed up with cookies and pressies, ready for Cookie Exchange.

We all had our Christmas socks on...

Yummo

These Cookie Exchanges seem to be coming around faster and faster,  and it's hard to believe we have been carrying on this tradition for 28 years.  We all agreed that's a pretty solid tradition, and a whole lot of cookies!!