It doesn't feel like Christmas without a tray of festively shaped cookies in holiday flavors like peppermint, cranberry orange, and gingerbread. All these Christmas cookie recipes are well-loved family favorites!
There's SO many things to love about Christmas, but for me, Christmas cookies take first place.
The festive shapes, the sweet aroma that engulfs the kitchen, the bold flavors of molasses and peppermint, I love it all!
If you're looking for a new cookie recipe to add to your holiday baking, look no further!
From snowball and Linzer cookies to gingerbread sandwich cookies with homemade caramel, I've got you covered!
Christmas Cookie Recipes:
1. Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Everyone needs a solid sugar cookie dough to roll, cut, and bake! These sugar cookies bake up soft AND hold their shape in the oven.
You can decorate them with royal icing or a simple buttercream frosting! Remember to load up on colorful sprinkles in red and green.
2. Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies
These adorable little Christmas trees have crispy edges with light and airy middles. They look impressively artistic when they're actually very simple to make!
You only need four ingredients, plus food coloring and sprinkles. Only 19 calories each!
3. 3-Ingredient Buttery Shortbread Cookies
Melt-in-your-mouth, buttery shortbread cookies! These decadent little cookies require 3 simple ingredients - butter, flour, and brown sugar.
You can cut them into Christmas shapes and all they need are sprinkles to make them pop!
4. Chocolate Dipped Ritz Cookies
These "cookies" are technically just ritz cookies filled with peanut butter and dipped in chocolate. But they're super tasty and fun to make!
My sister and I made these together when we were teenagers. The more toppings, the better!
5. Ginger Sandwich Cookies
If these ginger cookies don't make you drool, you might be broken!
Perfectly chewy ginger cookies get an upgrade with a spiced buttercream filling and homemade caramel.
If you want, you can swap the homemade caramel with a high-quality store-bought version.
6. Christmas Lights Cookies
Christmas light cookies are fun for kids of all ages! My kids love to help place the M&M's on the "strings".
You can use royal icing for the glaze or keep things simple and use piping gel for the black string.
7. Snowball Cookies
Snowball cookies always make it on my holiday baking list! I make a batch, freeze them, and snack on them the entire month of December.
They're buttery and nutty with a melt-in-your-mouth quality that's dangerously good.
8. Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Chocolate and peppermint are such a magical combo! These cookies are ultra-chocolatey with a velvety smooth ganache in the center and crushed peppermints.
Make these and all your friends will thank you!
9. Linzer Cookies
These buttery cookies feature a shortbread-like texture with a homemade cranberry jam filling.
These festive-looking sandwich cookies are beautiful and delicious!
10. Coconut Pecan Cookies
These cookies are subtly sweet with a chewy yet buttery texture! They're packed with shredded coconut and crunchy pecans.
Not a traditional Christmas cookie by any means, but a star nonetheless!
11. Christmas Icebox Cookies
Like a shortbread cookie and a fruitcake had a baby! These cherry studded cookies look like shiny Christmas jewels.
The key to these cookies is chilling them before you slice them. So keep that in mind when you make them.
They need to chill for at least 2 hours. But they're totally worth it!
12. Hot Chocolate Cookies
Just like the name suggests, these chocolate cookies are made with hot cocoa mix and marshmallow bits.
They taste like a cup of hot chocolate! A unique cookie for holiday cookie platters that everyone will love.
13. Christmas M&M Cookies
Nothing beats a classic! A decadent, perfectly thick chocolate chip cookie with lots of Christmas colored M&M's to make it festive!
They're ready to eat in less than 30 minutes AND they're freezer friendly.
14. Christmas Sandwich Cookies
These Christmas cookies are anything but subtle! But my kids love brightly colored cookies that POP and these do just that.
They're loaded with chocolate chips, M&M's, and Christmas sprinkles. And they're filled with red, white, and green buttercream.
15. Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
These chocolate crinkle cookies are ultra-fudgy and impossible to mess up! They're made with boxed Devil's food cake and a few pantry staples.
Only 12 minutes of hands-on time! Rich, chocolatey, and irresistible.
16. Spritz Cookies
Spritz cookies hold a special place in my heart. We made these every Christmas as little kiddos.
Our mom let us use the cookie press. It was thrilling to see the shapes form as we pushed the cookie dough through it.
You can decorate these adorable cookies with nonpareils, sanding sugar, jimmies, or melted chocolate!
17. Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Don't think I'd forget gingerbread cookies! These big, soft, and chewy ginger cookies taste just like the holidays.
You can make these into drop cookies OR cut-out cookies!
18. Christmas Shortbread Cookies
I'm a sucker for shortbread, always, but the addition of dried cranberries and pistachios take these cookies over the top!
The combination of sweet and salty is TOO good. Plus they're gorgeous. Win, win.
19. Christmas Pinwheel Cookies
These whimsical cookies feature bright green swirls with crunchy red sugary edges. Perfect for Christmas, but totally customizable.
You can swap the colors for other holidays too, orange for Halloween, and blue for 4th of July, etc.
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