Again I start a post by saying that I am exhausted. Baking cookies is hard work. I have a new appreciation for those who work in bakeries. I’m a wimp who sits in a chair at work all day. But, it’s fun too.

The Annual Atencio Women Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza commenced at 10 a.m. My mom, sister and I each had a handful of recipes we had chosen to bake and had 7 hours to do it (which was when we were meeting up with the rest of the fam for pizza). No problem, right? Well logistics tends to slow things down. There are only so many cookie sheets, pans, measuring cups, and spoons. Not to mention there is only one oven. So…there were times when we had a line of 5 cookies waiting to be baked and at a stand still until they could get in the oven.

We made a total of 11 today (6 of which were mine). My sis and mom are going to do more during the week but I wanted to get all mine done today because I knew I wouldn’t have much time otherwise. Here is a sampling of some that we did:

Chocolate chip cookie cups filled with M&M’s. The cool thing about these is you can fill them with anything you want, to correspond with the season. Aren’t they pretty?

Biscochitos, which are a traditional Spanish cookie (my dad’s family is from Spain). There are a few cookies we have to do each year and these are one of them. My dad’s mom used to make and ship ’em to us from Colorado. No one makes ’em like her, but we sure try.  

Dark chocolate cookie kisses. A new take on a traditional recipe. My sister also make the traditional ones, which are a peanut butter cookie with regular Hershey’s kisses on them.

Sugar cookies (well, at least a picture of the cookie cutters). Another old standby!

Salted Nut Roll Bars. These are my dad’s favorite so we have to do them. They’re quickly becoming my fav too which is odd because usually I go for anything chocolate. These are a perfect blend of salty and sweet, with marshmallows, peanut butter, peanuts, and rice krispies mixed together on a cake base. Mmmmm…..

The three of us exhausted after all the baking. We always have a lot of fun and I love that we have this tradition. It’s something that both my sister’s daughter and my daughter will join in someday. Just another reason to love the holidays!!