I was never big on sugar cookies, but this year I found a great recipe for not too sweet cookies & royal icing. I made some at Halloween and probably ate half myself. I'm going to make more at Christmas and add peppermint sugar sprinkles, yum! I also have to have peanut butter cookies w/ kisses (thumbprint cookies some call them) and mom's homemade chocolate chip cookies (only about half of those make it past the dough stage). I love to bake though, so I always try out new recipes for my coworkers and family.

gingerbread men

which might be a weird selection considering they aren't that rich or luxurious....i mean sure i love the taste of ginger, but they dont exactly symbolize excess the way other cookies do..

but nonetheless i have to make them every year or it doesn't feel like the holidays.. really its not a matter of eating them, its a matter of tradition

I make date snowballs every year, it wouldn't be Christmas without them: http://www.yumsugar.com/-Bake-Holiday-Cookie-Recipe-Date-Balls-6637749

I'm huge on bars because I don't like all of the cookie sheets in-and-out of the oven (and the burning risk!). I'm just waiting for my mom to make me my annual mint brownies. :)

I made these awesome Cranberry-Pecan Oatmeal bars that were so good. http://lauranav.com/2010/12/cranberry-pecan-oatmeal-bars/

Oh, there were countless variations of holiday cookies in my household growing up contributed from all of the different generations, to the point that it's almost more about having varieties of cookies than which ones. Though I love my mom's mocha cookies that are soft and cake-like and not too sweet. Mmmm....need to start baking...

Rum (or bourbon) balls! Somehow the fact they come but once a year makes them all the more enjoyable.

Chewy molasses spice cookies. I only make them once a year. It isn't Christmas without them.

Peanut butter blossoms (with the kiss on top) and cranberry, oatmeal, mac nut and white chocolate chip cookies are my standards year to year and ones I really look forward to making (and eating). And of course anything my mom makes: persimmon cookies, Mexican wedding cookies, date bars, cucidati and chocolate crinkles-to name just a few (bless her heart she still does all of these..) and the traditional anise cookies that my mom has passed on to my sister and what she gladly and superbly makes year in/year out. I ate the latter by the handful yesterday accompanied by a glass of mouvedre. Delicious.

My family makes "little cupcakes" that come somewhere from my Polish or Ukranian heritage. They are made in a mini cupcake pan. The dough is an unsweetened buttery cream cheese/sour cream dough, and they are pressed and filled with a sweetened walnut mixture (or homemade jam) that gets all melty inside and crust on the top. I've seen these elsewhere, but ours our yummier!!

Wespennester a.k.a. explosion cookies that my mom makes. They are essentially meringues with ground hazelnut and cocoa powder or chopped chocolate mixed in. The are crispy and craggy and oh so delicious. I am not sure why we started calling them that, maybe because they kind of look exploded (they typically come out hollow on the inside), or that they sort of explode in your mouth when you eat them. I've tried making them on my own, and they are never as good as they way mom makes them.

Pecan tarts.

Pfeffernusse.

Russian Tea Cakes.

Sugar Cookies.

Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies.

SNICKERDOODLES!!

sand tarts, kiffles, bourbon balls, sugar cookies!

Christmas hollies (well that's what my mom calls them) which are like rice krispy treats but with cornflakes. We put in green food coloring, and decorate them with couple red hot cinnamon candies to look like a holly bush.

My family's favorite are Empire Biscuits, two butter cookies filled with jam and iced and decorated. Considering how much work it takes to make these, they only ever get made for the holidays, and now, I am the only sucker crazy enough to keep the entire family in cookies for Christmas. It's an all day process for this one cookie, meaning everything else I make is a drop cookie.

I've never been a big maker of holiday cookies but this year I've done a lot of baking. I made a batch of David Lebovitz's salted butter chocolate chip cookies and I think I definitely need to make those again. I also adore gingerbread cookies.

I also want to do some sandwich ones. Something like a linzer cookie maybe.

For Hanukkah I made sugar cookies and my two daughters helped me decorate them with royal icing and different-colored sugars. Those were really fun.

Nanaimo bars!

Christmas Tree cookies!
Roll out your favorite teacake (less sweet) cookie recipe, cut with a Christmas tree cookie cutter. Decorate your "tree" with M&M's and bake as directed.
Kids love to help "decorate" the trees (and in my youth, we volunteered to eat the brown M&M's).

Anyone have a good recipe for gingerbread men? I want something on the soft side that would be good decorated with raisins.

I second Russian Tea Cakes, they are my most favorate cookies ever.

Mexican wedding cakes are my favorite, but we have to do iced (and sprinkled!) cut-out sugar cookies for the kids.

We make rosettes every year, several batches, as a matter of fact. The irons have been handed down by my great grandmother.

We're just starting out with our traditions, but this year has seen three of my husband's Oma's recipes: pfeffernusse, lebkuchen and 'angel wing' melt-in-the-mouth walnut butter cookies. We're pretty inexperienced but are having fun trying to figure out inherited recipes with partial instructions :) Judging each by the speed at which my coworkers devore our creations.

I make molasses spice cookies (from Rosie's Cookie Book) and Pecan Icebox Cookies (from Martha Stewart's Baking Book) every year and they are always well-received. This year, I'm planning to add peanut butter/Hershey Kiss thumbprint cookies to the mix (Rosie's Baking Book)

Favorites that my mother bakes (and have been in her family for generations) are Russian Tea Cookies w/Pecans, Cinnamon Nut Horns, and delicious cookies that don't have a name but are made with cream cheese dough, cut into squares, filled with apricot (or prune) preserves with edges folded over and dusted with powdered sugar. I can't wait!

As a kid - Church windows

Now - a toss up between peanut butter blossoms or date (filled) cookies.

or molasses chocolate chip!

chewy almond cookies! so simple so incredibly delicious.

My bf uses one of Martha Stewart's recipes to make chocolate ginger cookies--they are so good. They're the cookie of choice for my office during the holiday season.

When it comes to holiday cookies, I don't discriminate. My favorites are buckeyes (not really a cookie...), my mom's sugar cookies and "Mrs. Santa's butter cookies."

Recipe for the Mrs. Santa's butter cookies can be found here: http://freshandfoodie.wordpress.com

Chai wafers! They're deliciously spiced and end up caramelized. Yum!

http://lowcdiet.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-am-cookie-monster.html

Scotcheroos! Once I learned to make them, I kind of started making them all year 'round, but they still have a holiday feel to me. When I was little, my grandparents would make them, and I would keep sneaking them all day Christmas, until the whole plate was pretty much gone!

Spritz cookies, Snickerdoodles and "Fruit of the Gods" cookies, our name for these a.ma.zing peanut butter cookies with mini peanut butter cups in the middle. Heaven!

Cook's Illustrated "Thick + Chewy Gingerbread Cookies".. double the ground ginger, add some grated fresh. Perfection!

Mexican wedding cookies, nanaimo bars and shortbread.

mmmmm. reminds me of my mum.

Expatine, can I have that recipe for those walnutty wonders?

Man, that's so tough! I really like the warmness of lotus/biscoff speculoos biscuits, especially during the holidays. But you can't beat mint and chocolate anything at Christmas.

Linzer cookies from Joy, with raspberry jam. And pecan lace cookies drizzled with good dark chocolate.

biscochitos and chocolate crinkles!

the mother of one of my childhood friends is norwegian and would make krumkake around christmas -- beautiful, delicious cookies made on a waffle and shaped into cones -- we'd fill them with whipped cream before gobbling them up. mm!

http://scandinavianfood.about.com/od/cookierecipes/r/krumkake.htm

another year, i was inspired by another friend's mom to make rainbow cookies. time- and labor-intensive, but very worth it.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/12/seven-layer-cookies/

French lace cookies, Russian tea cookies, orange pecan cookies, spritz cookies, Amish almond cookies, my aunt's triple ginger cookies, brown sugar meringues... It's going to kill me to be on Weight Watchers for the next few weeks...

Speculaas.

Stellina D'oro. The recipe was in the back of Tommy DePaola's Jingle the Christmas Clown and my mother, sister, and I made it every year. The orange flower water in the dough and the saffron in the icing definitely mean that these cookies are a treat, but they were tradition.
Sadly, the book seems to have grown legs and isn't to be found, neither is the recipe anywhere online so we've had to scrap that one.

My favorites are gingersnaps. My grandpa and I shared that obsession. My five year old son's favority is chocolate covered krispy-treat balls. I take regular rice-krispie treat ingredients, roll it into truffle-sized balls, let them cool and then dip into melted baking chocolate. People are always surprised when they try them for the first time, because they truly expect cake or chocolate inside. I do need to come up with a better name for them and will take suggestions.