Cookie Swap

Cookie Swap, the newest holiday reality show on FOX.

Well...maybe not so much, although I'd probably watch because I'm weird that way.

Ahem.

"What is a cookie swap??" I hear you clamor. Or was that the cats knocking something over? Eh, whatever. A cookie swap is a fine way to have elleventy-million kinds of cookies without baking them all yourself.

You pick some friends - the swap I'm taking part in on Saturday may have several dozen people present - and set a date and time. You bake a batch or three of your favorite cookie - or, if you're me, you bake huge batches of your four or five favorite cookies - and plate 'em up. Bring the cookies and an empty platter, tin, or portable hole with you to the swap. When the time is right (shortly after you've all been caught snitching cookies from the table when you thought no one was looking), you each take turns telling the others about your cookie - why it's special, why you like it, or which store you bought it at. The you go around and around the table, taking one or two or twenty of each cookie, loading your empty receptacle up.

I bring ten pounds of cookies and leave with twenty. It's magic.

It's fun, too - there are some neat stories about the various cookies. This year I will make Oatmeal Everything (aka Leftovers) Cookies, Snickerdoodles (try saying that without smiling, I dare you) and possibly Simple Sugar Cookies and Peppermint Filled Cookies (little butter cookies with a peppermint/cream cheese filling that is all gooey and delightful) if I have time.

Have I mentioned that I adore baking? I do - it's very therapeutic, and since I can't afford a shrink, I bake. A lot. The best part is, I will take all the cookies with me and be rid of them...although...hmm...I end up bringing home a ton of other cookies to take their place, so there's a flaw in my logic. Oh, well. I put them in boxes and tins, or on plates, and send them to work with T, give them to my Mum to keep or hand out, give them to our postal Goddess and the Trash Dudes, and leave stealth cookies for the neighbors. It's a tradition that makes me smile.

Try it and see if you don't have fun.