The Twelve Cookies of Christmas

Every December, the same quiet negotiation happens in kitchens everywhere: you want a cookie tin that looks abundant — the kind people open slowly and remember in January — but you also have a job, a family, and a finite amount of counter space. The answer is not more cookies. It is the right cookies: exactly twelve signature Christmas cookies, each different in flavor, texture, shape, and color. Inside are complete recipes for Vanilla Bean Sugar Cut-Outs, Gingerbread, Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Crinkles, Peanut Butter Blossoms, Raspberry Thumbprints, Linzers, Classic Butter Shortbread, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Peppermint Bark Cookies, Eggnog Cookies, and Stained-Glass Window Cookies — each with exact quantities, temperatures, and timing, plus variations, baker's notes, and serving, storing, and gifting guidance. The back of the book is devoted to the social life of cookies: a complete cookie-swap hosting guide, a packaging chapter that turns a plain batch into a gift with presence, and a December baking calendar that spreads the twelve across the month — so you are never baking at midnight on December 23rd.